So I'm just starting to recover from the hectic weekend I had. But the greater the risks, the greater the reward; and risk it all we did. I left the house on saturday before anyone else to enjoy a peaceful day of history, little did I know that I would end up in Germany's oldest cities. As I was riding the train back from Dachau (read below), Allen sent me a text message to meet him at the train station at 5 pm. Why you ask? So did I. It was 4:40 and the train takes over 25 minutes to return to Munich. I called him up to see what was going on. He let me know that the last train to Trier leaves at 5:37 and the World Rally Championships are making their only stop in Germany tomorrow. Needless to say I stepped off one train and got right on another.
Getting to Trier was easy. To quote H.S. Thompson, "Buy a ticket. Take a ride." I think he meant that in a slightly different context, but I digress. We knew where we were going, and where to look for fellow race fans for advice; but we had nowhere to stay, no tickets to the race, no idea where to buy said tickets. We did have huge amount of optimism, and the desire to see racing that doesn't generally make it across to America. Six and a half hours and two trains later we pulled into the station at Trier. Part one: Get to Trier; complete.
Trier is a small city on the border of Germany, maybe 30 minutes from Luxembourg. It was founded by the Romans in 16 BC and the historic tone of the city is echoed in it's appearance. The city Center is home to the Porta Nigra, a Roman gate to the former city border, built in the second century. It's starting to sink in. So we've come to the oldest city in the country to see modern monsters, rip around tight, winding streets at breakneck speeds...Sweet. Nothing was going to stop this from happening.
First we needed some information. We met a group of Subaru fans outside a a cafe and managed to get a map of the race events off of them. It told us that the info booths opened at 7 am, but didn't mention anything about buying tickets. So we had to wait. It's now around 1 in the morning and we haven't found anyone else to help us out. We tried 4 hotels for a room, but of course there's no rooms, 120,000 people have come from everywhere to see the races. We continued to walk around town looking for a place to sleep, which by this time, did not exclude cozy places on the street or on a bench.
Around 2:45, we posted up in front of a large stone building near one of the turns on the racetrack. Our thought was, if we wake up within the gates, maybe they won't check for tickets. Um, yeah right. We just needed a place to stay close enough to the track so we could get there in the morning. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I slept in a nook on the stairs until I couldn't take the cold anymore, and decided to get the heart rate up by walking around. It would be sunrise soon and that meant we needed to find tickets. We found coffee and bread at the train station before heading towards the racetrack to find tickets. The night was gone, and I had spent my first night homeless...something I'm in no rush to do again.
The entire race was sold out. What? Wait we came all this way, slept on the street, and can't see the race? Sympathy is not a German strong point apparently. I had previously learned how to ask for tickets in German(read further down for that one), so I made up a sign from a poster I found on a phonebooth around the way, and we headed towards the entrance. This was at 7:30 am. The rally started at 11:11, so I figured we had a good shot, plus there was no way we were leaving this city without seeing the race. At 10:04, a stroke of luck: A woman with a large group of people, had 1 extra ticket. That will do...now for the other two guys I came with....uh, you guys have any luck? Nope, but that didn't matter. We could get inside the gates now.
We spent the next 3 hours watching some crazy Hoons throw hyper-tuned, AWD machines around an ancient city. The excitement throughout the city was electric. After all the cars on the ticket had run their times, they brought out the vintage rally cars. Audi Quattro, Renault Elf, BMW 2002, and something called the LANCIA STRATOS? hmm, what could that have been...only the sickest rally car ever built. A Lancia Stratos in the flesh(steel); running balls out, through the streets of Trier. And only 7 hours ago I was sleeping on the stoop of some building in the cold night.
The smell of octane in the air and melted rubber from the street will last forever, but not to worry, I took a few pictures and some video. I'll get the video up as soon as RTT unblocks youtube, or follows through with getting us internet access at the flat. Here's a couple shots to wet your appetite.
Audi Quattro
Mitsubishi Evolution
1 comment:
dude, curt....
you're awesome..
gyah!
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