Hey all,
Last weekend I was lucky enough to check out the Top Gear festival at Kyalami, South Africa.
As a huge F1 fan, and a fan who is stuck in SA with no hope of ever watching a live F1 race, I was plesently suprised by how much F1 spirit was brought to SA thanks to Top Gear. In fact, there was more F1 than there was Top Gear.
The day began with a porsche parade. Around 60 of them on track, ranging from 356′s to the fastest GT’s and even formulas. While you could tell they were not really racing eachother, the show was still impressive.
We had one or two mentions about the top gear presenters, but they only showed their faces once (unless you had tickets to their show as well).
The Redbull F1 team was there, along with Eddy Jordan and David Coulthard. David took last years F1 machine around the track, showing off what F1 is about to all the desperate F1 fans who have never seen it on anything but the telly.
A big part of the show was Jody Scheckter and his boys. They rocked up in some lovely historical F1 cars which Jody owns. Surprisingly, Scheckter in his championship winning Ferrari was able to keep up with David who was in his RB. Although Jody has to really drift his ride to keep up. Afterwards Jody was allowed to take the RB for a spin, doing around 5 laps and from the looks of things, really giving it everything.
The event wasn’t without its problems. The walking distance was immense. In the past we were allowed to park out cars in the grounds, as the track has decent parking area’s. However this time they disallowed it and the bus’s we used dropped us off miles from the entertainment hubs. Without warning anyone about the great walking distance prior to arrival, the older generations (60+) were stranded half way in the boiling summer sun, wondering how much further they were expected to walk. There were many other problems, such as the lack of toilets nearby (some stands required a mile long walk to the nearest loo).
Here are some pics of the event: http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/top-gear-festival-south-africa-2011-03-21?imageNo=0
