One of my Passions is Formula One

It wasn't all that long ago that I would watch every practice, every qualifying, and every race live. Seeing as the race is held in the afternoon in tracks all over the world, this meant there were quite a few times when I would get home from work, crash, wake up at midnight, one, two or three am to watch the event. I'm getting older now, I don't fall asleep when I want to, I fall asleep when I don't plan on it, but not when I want to. And I have found that since I have gotten older, all the alarms in the world won't wake me at two or three am. 

Last night was qualifying for the Race in Shanghai China, Qualifying started at 3 am. I decided, I would rather be asleep since I had to be here at work this morning. The Shanghai circuit though, is one of my favorites, and I was loath to miss it.

Shanghai is also one of my favorites to race on the F1 video games, it has two of the longest straights in F1, you punch the throttle and take off, at a certain point there is no going faster, you just sit there with the engine screaming.

The first turn complex is fantastic, you go in fast then the radius keeps tightening into a real sharp uphill right, you keep braking and correcting then you stomp it and you scream back up to speed on a downhill opening left turn. Turn 4 is just about flat out before you start braking for five, turn 8 is another flat out right before you hit the long straight.

Formula One is racing on a Grand Scale, everything is over sized, over designed, over expensive and unfortunately, over there.

 Even the United States Grand Prix is a distance away, Austin Texas. The closest to us here is the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. 

Anyway, back to getting old and not watching the away races.

I decided not to get up for qualifying, I was going to just watch TV then sleep in the recliner, but, I decided the couch would be more comfortable.

Around 3:15 the world went into a barrel roll, and so did I, It would appear I rolled over and in so doing woke myself up, even my dream started to spin, then I opened my eyes, just before I impacted with the floor. I actually thought it was rather funny and laid there laughing, a look at the clock...3:15am, HEY!, Qualifying!!. I had only missed the first 15 minutes. So on with the Television, Qualifying ended at 4:30, I played a little black jack on line, took a shower and came here...to work.

The race is tomorrow morning at 2am, I won't be watching it though, I will be sleeping...

maybe, on the couch.