{"id":3805,"date":"2018-09-20T22:35:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T04:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/?p=3805"},"modified":"2018-09-20T22:35:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T04:35:36","slug":"rmvr-snowmass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/2018\/09\/rmvr-snowmass\/","title":{"rendered":"RMVR Snowmass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday and Monday, September 16 & 17, 2018<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a>I had about thirteen hundred words written up about Sunday and Monday going through things in detail. Nobody really cares, though, so I\u2019ll just cut to the chase.<\/p>\n

I stood around on the inside of turn 13 with David and Victoria, my co-crowd-controllers. We were keeping people out of the way and our corner workers, Tom and Brian, were on the outside of turn 13 keeping the drivers out of trouble. The biggest moment of excitement for them was when one of the Formula cars spun 180 degrees very close to Brian.<\/p>\n

I had quite a bit more interaction with spectators than I did last year. Almost without exception (almost!), they were enthusiastic about the race. Not many were race fans, but they did get a kick out of the cars. It\u2019s quite the sensory experience. The cars are brightly colored and moving fast, they\u2019re loud, you can smell the exhaust. When the big bore cars get on the throttle exiting the turn, particularly when they are bunched closely together, you can feel it in your chest. It is nothing at all like watching them on TV, and words completely fail to convey the experience.<\/p>\n

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Our corner workers, Tom and Brian<\/p><\/div>\n

RMVR fed us dinner Sunday evening. We had beer and wine and the food was prepared by King Kong Emergency Response Catering Wild Fire Team. As you may divine from their name, their specialty is feeding the firefighters who fight wildfires. It\u2019s not your basic food truck, but is prepared to traverse somewhat more difficult terrain than your typical urban landscape.<\/p>\n

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They had a variety of food available. I selected fish, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dinner roll. I was seated with my corner colleagues David and Victoria. When I got into the line for food I ran into Doug, so he joined us. He\u2019s helping out a guy named Joe. Joe brought two cars: the number 17 Lotus 7 and the 007 Lotus Elan. He\u2019s pretty fast. He asked where I was standing. I told him I was the guy giving all the Lotus cars the double thumbs up in turn 13 on the cool down lap. \u201cAh, I know where you were!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>David and Victoria ate quickly and retired to the hotel. Their spots at the table were taken by who I later learned were Steve and his wife. When I introduced myself to Joe I gave him my name and said, \u201cI\u2019m the green and yellow Elise.\u201d That\u2019s when Steve piped up and said he knew who I was. He\u2019s in charge of arranging the volunteers for the lunch laps for the Race Against Kids Cancer. We had met briefly at last year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I didn\u2019t take any of the cameras with me on Sunday. Corner captain Tom said, \u201cIf you\u2019re watching the race you\u2019re not doing your job.\u201d But I wasn\u2019t much busier here than on my station last year, so I was comfortable bringing all the cameras on Monday. I spent the first two laps or so of the first session for each group shooting with the SLR. I also found a variety of places to position the GoPros so that I\u2019d get multiple angles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sunday\u2019s activities were a bit shorter than Saturday\u2019s. We had to give the streets back to the public no later than 4:00pm so the school buses could run. That was plenty of action for us. In total, we spent about sixteen hours standing on the street corner watching the cars and making sure nobody got in the way. The weather couldn\u2019t have been much better; fine late summer days, a light breeze and no rain.<\/p>\n

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Sunday morning walking down to the meeting I spotted a place that said they served authentic Philly cheesesteaks. That sounded like a great idea for dinner, so after getting a shower I went to check it out. My first question was \u201cWhat kind of bread do you use?\u201d The answer wasn\u2019t \u201cAmoroso,\u201d which, to me, means they\u2019re not authentic. So I went searching for Plan B. There was an interesting looking Mexican place, but I didn\u2019t want to spend that much so I found myself back to the New Belgium place where Jason and I ate Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I did verify that David and Victoria were correct in that the Hanging Lake trail is closed. So I\u2019m back to Plan A for the return to Denver: over Independence and Loveland passes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was back to the hotel and sacked out earlier than my usual bedtime.<\/p>\n

Here’s a short video of the cars passing through turn 13.<\/p>\n