This is the live thread we promised for our trip to London for the Evening with Joe. It's not clear how much we'll be in contact, but it's useful to have a thread just in case. Having said that, I know Alex is taking multiple Apple devices. We can use this thread for the many, many, many pictures from him, and we'll try and get a word in sometimes as well.
Hopefully we can give you a little insight if you can't actually make it to London, and it might spur you on to snap up tickets to the next Evening with Joe event.
We'll be keeping an eye on the comments, so if you have any burning questions you'd like us to throw at Joe, we'll see if we can get them answered.
The event starts at 7pm, but no doubt Mr C will be live commenting the journey to London as I do the driving. We will see you in and around the comments!
Updated: Joe has posted an update from the venue. Just half an hour to go.
Updated: Some mobile pics (sorry the lighting is a bit iffy):
It's been a couple of weeks since the Festival of Speed came to a close, and as promised in last week's Debrief show, we're gathering together the tales of those who went and shared their stories with us. We've got blogs to link to, pictures to look at, plus those fabulous voicemails from Lukeh on the premises. Let's get started.
Lukeh has written about his day and by all accounts he was very impressed with his first trip to the Festival. He also has some photos up on Flickr. He, Lou and Chris (Vampire Chris) met within the grounds and had a fun-filled day, including a chance meeting with John Button. If you've heard the Debrief linked above, you'll know we played some voicemails from Lukeh about the day as well, but here they are again:
The voicemail where Lukeh was speechless:
The voicemail where Chris punched John:
This leads us nicely on to Lou's photos of the weekend, which are - as usual - excellent. There are plenty of Jenson Button ones, but also lots of the hill climb as well.
Like Lou, Pat spent just one day at the Festival but still managed to see an impressive amount. This puts us to shame really, as we found ourselves unable to fit it all in even over three days. Nevertheless, Pat's got three blog posts so far with, I think, more to come.
He also has photos on Picasa. Over to Flickr again, though, Chris Harland has four pages worth of photos - focusing more on the cars than the personalities. Ollie also has some great photos on Flickr, and I think he is currently deciding whether to put his writeup on BlogF1 or his personal site. Ollie met up with Tom at the festival, who has also written his thoughts up.
Back to the photo sharing, and Nick set up a Flickr account specifically for his Goodwood photos. There are some great car closeups on there, I am particularly fond of the Le Mans car shots. Lynch has also posted his photos, and there are some stunning ones in there.
So, that is the majority of what has been on my radar. If I have missed anyone, firstly accept my apologies, and secondly, let us know in the comments, and we'll update the blog as we find them. It looks like a great time was had by all, so roll on next year!
Last year, Mr C and I tied the knot and in true F1-geek fashion, we planned the event around the Grand Prix calendar. That was the extent of our F1 themed nuptials, and when we returned we discovered that there is another way.
For all true F1 fans out there, looking for a place to wed that will reflect their love of the sport alongside their love of each other, the Williams Conference Centre will do the job.
We had this discussion in the comments a while ago, but having uncovered a few other items that you could use to make your wedding F1 shaped, I thought a blog post was in order.
Firstly, let's look at the conference centre. There are a couple of wedding packages to choose from, and they mostly cater to the natural order of things - champagne, waiters, flowers. Of course, being situated next to the Williams F1 Grand Prix Collection means they throw in a tour of that as well, along with the trophy room and technology exhibition. If that's not enough, you can even select an optional extra which would see your guests enjoy competing in an F1 simulator for the evening. What more could a blushing bride ask for?
Well, seeing as you asked, if you wanted to make the catering a little more F1-related, then perhaps Absolute Taste could do the job. The company is owned by the McLaren Group, and although they don't necessarily bake chequered flag cakes (although I'm sure they would if you asked nicely), they do "provide the finest food and hospitality for the guests of VMM, around the world during the grand prix season. A dedicated team at Absolute Taste travels the world creating their food and style at every race and test for 11 months of the year." Imagine the kind of menu they could come up with, and the stories they could tell you.
Finally, if you're still struggling on what to wear, then there is a paddock regular with a fashion designer for a daughter. Granted, it's hard to want to part with money and give it to anyone called Ecclestone, but Petra does design some pretty nice clothes. The suits are stunning. There's no bridal wear, but again, you've just got to have the right persuading tactic (money).
Now that I've started to figure out how to have the perfect F1 themed wedding, I'm jealous of anyone that has yet to start organising their own celebrations. What kind of fool was I for heading off into the sunset on a boat, when I could have been beating Mr C in an F1 simulator. If you've had any experience of F1 themed activities that would fit in our fictional wedding day, please let us know. Or perhaps you've got some ideas of how you'd want your own dream F1 day to go. Feel free to share, whilst I attempt to get Mr C to agree to renewing one's vows. Who cares if it's only been a year?
There must be something about the off-season that leads us in the direction of Mark Webber. This time last year we ended up dining in his restaurant, and 12 months later we spent an afternoon at Silverstone listening to him talk.
The Porsche Driving Centre, a recent addition to the Silverstone circuit and situated next to Hangar Straight, were running a workshop today called "Fit to Race". In essence this consisted of a number of demonstrations relating to driver performance metrics, from diet and training, to mental preparation and psychology. Mark was in attendance as a guest speaker, offering his take on subjects such as hydration, working out and how he's been coping with a dodgy leg.
The man talked at length in two separate sessions, and we'll no doubt go into more detail in future. Suffice to say, on behalf of all Sidepodcast listeners we put the question of Michael Schumacher's speedy recovery in '99 to Mark and the official word is, he believes he'll match the former World Champion with an eleven week recovery period. How annoyingly diplomatic.
We have to say a huge thank you to Mike Garth, who originally mentioned the workshop on Twitter. Mike was another speaker at Silverstone today (and if we may say so, best after Webber), he specialises in psychology and performance coaching in motorsport, and you can find out more information at Sun1400. As a sideline, he also finds things for Sidepodcast to do during the winter, and we can't thank him enough.
There's so much more to discuss about our day, we met so many fantastic people, we don't know where to begin. We'll cover more in a future podcast, but with the debut of Sidepodchat tomorrow, it may have to wait a while. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on our Flickr pages during the week though.
We made it. We found our way down the yellow brick road to the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham for our annual pilgrimage to The Racing Car Show.
The plan is to keep this thread up-to-date with pictures and news throughout the day. As ever, we are testing out new technologies, though, so you will have to bear with us. If you've got any questions about the show, or what we're up to, please let us know in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer them.
Highlight of the day was meeting Franck.
Aside from him, the event was a bit of a disappointment, bring on the karting.
As part of our end of year round up, we like to take a look back at our year through the eyes of our camera lens. Usually, all the good photos are posted to our Flickr account, but this is the place for those photos with history, but that aren't visually up to scratch. If you haven't read Part 1 yet, take a look here.
Goodwood FOS
Goodwood was a complete disappointment for me this year, but not because anything Lord March did or didn't organise. I was still living in the misery of some serious Silverstone germs, and could only manage to attend half a day, despite having three day tickets. What I did notice of that half day though, is the massive attention the Bugatti Veyron got.
The Formula 1 paddock was full of people, and they were meandering around. If a team opened their marquee and allowed a glimpse of the car, or if any notable person made an appearance, then you'd get a crowd gather. But the Veyron was a static display, and was hugely popular all the time.
In fact, there were three of the supercars side by side, and you had to elbow through the crowd to get near enough for a good photo. We met up with Lou and her friend Emily at Goodwood, and the first place we went was to see the Veyrons. It surprises me that this car, three years old now, is still such a fascination to the population, myself included.
Sidepodtour: Paris
This view, the Obelisk of Luxor next to a Paris Eye style big wheel, is what Max sees when he looks out of his office window. Situated in the Place de la Concorde, the two features are particularly popular. Having taken enough photos of the front door of the FIA building, we headed around la Place to see what else was going on.
We were told off by a security guard, and warned not to take photographs of the American Embassy, an embassy we didn't even know was there. Then we crossed over a couple of roads and snapped some shots of the Obelisk instead. I say crossed the roads casually, like it's a simple task to make it across the Paris streets in one piece. It isn't.
There are tons of cars going in all different directions, and a swarm of people crossing in both directions. Which makes it all the more odd that by only waiting for a few moments, we could take photographs of the features of Place de la Concorde with no people in them. In London, this is almost impossible.
Sidepodtour: Williams Grand Prix Collection
The final stop on our Sidepodtour for 2008 was a visit to the Grand Prix Collection housed at the Williams F1 Conference Centre. The centre itself was great, with a nice guide talking us through the hall of champions, and into a short promotional video for the team. Then we were allowed through to the collection, where a detailed video looked at each era of cars in turn. They were grouped by engine supplier, and allowed us to be guided from Williams humble beginnings through to F1 as it is today.
My favourite bit though, was when the video told me there was a red Williams. The above picture should show that this is in fact the case, although it was very dark for our poor camera to try and capture the moment. I don't know about anyone else, but a red Williams just isn't right to me. I'm glad they went back to the more favourable blue and white instead.
With the Sidepodtour only just beginning, I wonder what photos will be featured next year.
As part of our end of year round up, we like to take a look back at our year through the eyes of our camera lens. Usually, all the good photos are posted to our Flickr account, but this is the place for those photos that tell a story although they aren't quite up to my personal publishable standards.
Autosport International
AI is a good way to kick off the motorsport year, breaking us into the Formula 1 world after a festive season of working on the website. In 2008, my main mission was to collect as much junk as possible, although it left me feeling unfulfilled and wishing I'd paid a bit more attention. One thing I did pay attention to, however, is the Main Stage, which hosted several famous faces. We saw Jenson talking candidly about his hopes for the Honda team, and as the above demonstrates, we saw Webber, discussing his Tasmania Challenge and how Red Bull would be performing in the coming season.
The reason I've chosen this photo for the 2008 In... series is because it also features Henry Hope-Frost. At the time, I had no idea who he was, and Mr C was vaguely aware of him from the Autosport podcast. For reasons unknown, he didn't come across well during these interviews. It's a difficult performance to give, with the stage being double sided, F1 drivers being usually reluctant to talk, and the usual pressures of keeping to the schedule. I can understand why he seemed a bit hassled.
Roll on six months though, and we caught up with Mr Hope-Frost at the British GP. He was a brilliant guy, really funny, and certainly an under-used talent at Autosport. I like this photo because it reminds me not to judge people based on one glimpse of them, the same way we shouldn't judge Formula 1 drivers on one bad performance. That being the case, Nakajima, you are forgiven.
Silverstone Test
This was my first attendance at a test, after Mr C scuttled off by himself last year. I had a really good time, but only because of our Silverstone Racing Club tickets. If you've listened to the podcast related to this outing, you'll know that we were quite impressed with the benefits of being an SRC member. Special car park, access to food, facilities and a grandstand, but most importantly, access to the paddock in the afternoon. We recommended the tickets highly, but now there's no in season testing and Silverstone are losing their grip on the Grand Prix itself, it's perhaps not such a good investment.
Nevertheless, at the time we were unaware of all this and I was particularly looking forward to the pit lane walk. However, once inside the sacred stretch of concrete, there was very little to see. The above picture was taken thanks to the long reach of Mr C's arms. Never has being of regular height been such a disadvantage.
I can understand that the teams don't invite the public to come and gawp at them as they work through their lunch, and that it is the circuit that allow the access. However, they don't appear to be doing anything particularly secret. It's nothing we don't see on the television during a race weekend. If the teams are worried about their competitors getting a glimpse, wouldn't they need to keep shut through the whole day? It was such a disappointment, with only Force India allowing fans a peek into their garage. Thankfully, I married a tall man and can foil the other teams plans.
British GP
It's very easy to rave about what a great time we had at the British Grand Prix this year, because it was amazing. However, it was also a miserable experience. Forget the fact that I caught the worst cold I've ever had from sleeping in a cardboard bread bin in a freezing cold field. Forget the fact that it was a bit rainy. Silverstone is a nasty place to be.
When the action is going, particularly if the sun is out, you can be forgiven for getting all sentimental about the place. The history is plain to see, the power of Formula 1 can overwhelm you as the cars speed around each fabled corner. Turn the sun off for even a second, though, and it's not a fun place to be. The walkways get muddy, the majority of grandstands are uncovered, and don't get me started on the rotten bridge.
Sunday, this year, was completely drenched, and the above picture proves that even the teams have to take special measures to try and survive a weekend in the British countryside.
That was the first half of our year in pictures, don't forget to check out Part 2.
As a guest of the Williams F1 Grand Prix Collection tour, there's a chance to sit in an actual Formula 1 car towards the end. Tucked away in the corner of the trophy room is Ralf Schumacher's car from 2000, I believe - feel free to correct me on that one.
I wasn't at all sure about having a sit in the car, partly because being anywhere Ralf has been isn't particularly enticing, and partly because it was the centre of attention. Nevertheless, I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Getting into the car is easy. The very nice Williams man tells you to hold yourself on your arms, tuck your feet in, and slide all the way down. Simple. Once inside, I was amazed. I'd expected it to be really claustrophobic, but it was actually quite nice, although definitely a snug fit. I wouldn't go so far as to say comfortable though. Granted, I never had a fitting, but the seat is all knobbly and there's a tendency to elbow oneself in the ribs when holding on to a steering wheel. I can't believe this is conducive to concentration when whizzing about at high speeds.
The other thing that surprised me was the visibility. I wasn't as low as I thought I would be. Again, no seat fitting will make this experiment quite unscientific, but I could touch the pedals so I can't have been too far out. I thought it was going to be just a glimpse of the horizon, but I could actually see quite a long way. I imagine the added restrictions of a helmet have a huge impact on visibility, but it certainly wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
The only problematic moment was trying to climb out of the car. The natural instinct upon standing up is to lift your knees and then haul upwards. Not in here. You have to slip out of the seat far enough for your knees to be able to bend. It had me quite confused for a while, and I was worried I'd be stuck in an F1 car forever. Thankfully, the very nice Williams man was on hand to explain how I was doing it all wrong and just had to get my limbs under control.
All in all, it was great to have a glimpse into Ralf's drivers office. I know it was nothing like what he would go through on an average race weekend, but I reckon being jostled about for two hours in one of those things is worth a trophy or two. Have you ever sat in an F1 car? How did you find it?
We've been out and about again. This afternoon, thanks to the lovely people at Williams Grand Prix Engineering, we got to spend some time in Grove, Oxfordshire poking our noses around the gorgeous RBS Conference Centre.
As mentioned a couple of shows back the team's fan club is on a temporary hiatus while they develop it into something more modern. As a final farewell they invited a bunch of us for a tour of the F1 Grand Prix Collection.
Learning from previous mistakes, Christine managed to squeeze this visit into her hectic schedule, and she was mighty glad she did when Sir Frank Williams arrived for a surprise Q&A session.
As to be expected from a team that's been in Formula One for 31 years, the collection was a sight to behold. We were treated to a lesson in ground effects, saw the six-wheeled FW08B up close and decided that the more modern BMW powered machines were by far the best looking of the lot.
In addition we got to chat with Claire, the host of the AT&T Williams Podcast. She was very lovely, despite not having much of a clue who we were, and I found myself more star struck after meeting her than I was Frank.
As ever, we'll talk more about our adventures on this weekend's show.
This weekend we planned to not podcast because we intended to kick off the first part of our post-season tour, whereby we fill in the downtime with trips to a variety of motorsport related locations. As with everything we do, it's an ad-hoc affair, we don't expect to plan anything more than a week in advance.
The first location on the agenda was Paris, France. The lovely capital city houses basecamp for the motorsport governing body Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Ideally the trip would have seen us leave on Friday, spend a quiet few days figuring out how we make all of our equipment work on the continent, and return late on Sunday.
That was before Honda announced their rather unexpected exit strategy on Thursday evening.
Friday was a write-off given the amount of news bouncing around, and suddenly this wasn't a good week to skip a show. Instead we compressed all the above plans into two days as best we could.
There was no way we could drive to France, visit Max's pad and return in time for a live show on Sunday evening, so we've bounced that over to Monday for the first time in a long time.
As for the tour, well, we got lost... a lot. More than you could possibly imagine in fact. Aside from navigational issues, there's much to be sorted in terms of keeping in contact with the site too. The important thing, however, is we survived our first continental Sidepodcast outing.
We'll likely chat in more detail on Monday, and while peering at the outside of a locked door isn't the most auspicious start to a tour, we feel we've made a successful sidepodstep this weekend.
