Day iii - The waiting is the hardest part.

02 July 2009

Ahhhhhhh sleep. Back on schedule.

Joined up with the crew at breakfast, where we had a quick meeting about pre-race responsibilities. I found myself without much of a job, until the trucks were powered up and available to work in over at the compound. Estimated time of availability: 1PM.

So I went out for a walk around town. Saw plenty of neat little places, took a lot of great pictures, and found a museum/store of historical Formula 1 stuff. This guy had quite the setup of old helmets, tires, and model cars. I snapped a couple of pictures.

Then, the text messages started coming in.

ALLY DICKIE:
1:18:22PM
Trucks haven’t parked yet. At least another hour and half.

MARIA HARUTUNIAN
3:13:17PM
Looks like we can head over at about 4. Will update.

MARIA HARUTUNIAN
3:55:58PM
Looks like another 40 minutes or so.

DAVID POLK
5:05:37PM
Is the truck still having problems?

Arrival at truck: 5:45PM

So we got about 4 hours of work in before they had no choice but to cut the power at the end of the night. Not a whole lot was accomplished. Which just means that tomorrow will be a FULL-on day of working. I can’t wait.

A large group of us went out in search of dinner, only to be split up when the restaurant could not accommodate us. Little did Brett and I know, that Maria and Leslie had arranged for a private table for the four of us for dinner. While Brett felt bad about ditching everyone we were with, he learned a valuable lesson in Tour de France lore regarding dinner: you can’t have a 30-person sit down every night, and you won’t be offending anyone after ditching them for dinner.