ROC

General Meets + Track Day Reports
1

Given that photo threads are de rigeur at the moment, I thought I’d share my thoroughly excellent weekend.

This was my view on Saturday afternoon.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/ROCpanorama.jpg[/image]

For those of you not familiar with ROC, it stands for Race of Champions (which loosely translates to lots of top drivers). Although why Renault, as a sponsor of the event, could only get Alonso’s car their and not a F1 driver I’ve no idea, but they did provide some of the racing material.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0116.jpg[/image]

The format is basically build a rally super special type circuit inside the Stade de France and have a couple of competitions (although with some other entertainment) in a 5 hour period. The first event is call the Nations Cup and two drivers from a country (loosely, there was a Benelux team) go head-to-head in a best of three with the winner progressing to the next stage.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0042.jpg[/image]

[I should probably say now that if you haven’t seen the Eurosport highlights yet and don’t want the know the results, perhaps best to pop back later] The racing was fast and furious and the UK did the Germans in the first round, but lets just say a partisan crowd helped the French in the second round.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0083.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0308.jpg[/image]

The Americas proved they couldn’t go round corners!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0073.jpg[/image]
[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0079.jpg[/image]

Although that is slightly unfair on the American champion trail rider who almost knocked Loeb out…until he put a WRC car in the wall backwards on the final bend.

Talking of motorbikes, once the Nations Cup had been wrapped up by the Scandinavians (Kristensen & Ekstrom, both DTM drivers) there was some entertainment whilst they got ready for the Race of Champions (more of the same but individuals rather than nations and not best of 3, making it a bit more tense). This involved a big ramp and suddenly almost out of nowhere this started to happen!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0218.jpg[/image]

And look at this one carefull! You may even be able to see the rain (not that we got wet BTW, even being near the front we were pretty well covered)

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0214.jpg[/image]

It’s very hard to give an impression of just how high off the ground these guys were!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0237.jpg[/image]

Bikes weren’t the only spectical, this chaps kept popping out, and he’s British…and completely mad!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0278.jpg[/image]

Both cars are spinning there, he got one going jumped out, leaving it donuting, set the other one off before jumping back on the roof!

The cars did their best at jumping off the bridge but it wasn’t quite the same.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0085.jpg[/image]

In the break they also had a PS2 race with the winner taking on Loeb in real cars. As you can see, it’s harder in real life, I think this was his 3rd bend!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0181.jpg[/image]

Loeb was pretty amazing though.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0064.jpg[/image]

I understand he’s going to be jointed next season by Sordo, the JWRC champ.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0186.jpg[/image]

Creeping down the front (until I was ushered away) allowed me to get really close to some of the action. I doubt it’s possible to get this close to a full blown F1 car giving it big beans, certainly without a press pass.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0294.jpg[/image]

Loeb won in the end, helped perhaps a little by being but in a Citroen WRC car for quite a few of his races. Not that Kristensen can complain too much given his efforts in the final!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0316.jpg[/image]

The venue was great and if you missed any action it was replayed on the screens. I don’t think we missed anything with French commentary either and even after 5 hours in the cold (approx. 5oC) we were still having fun! The wife even enjoyed it all.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/IDG/ROC%202005/DSC_0196.jpg[/image]

We were expecting it to be hellish getting out of the stadium and back to Paris, but no. Despite 40,000 odd people all leaving together, it was a 10 min walk to the station and staight on to a fairly empty trainfor the 5 minute journey.

The ROC tickets cost us about about �40 (although there were cheaper options, basically higher and drier), the rtn on Eurostar was �60 (booked early), �75 for a 3* twin room close to the station and for about 50 more quid we ate and drunk well three times (not getting back to the hotel until gone 1 ).

All-in-all a fantastic way of spending the weekend!

Ian

2

Good pics, looks like it was good fun and value for money.

Has Loeb crashed his car over the kerbs in the pic where he is waving?

3

Has Loeb crashed his car over the kerbs in the pic where he is waving?

No, that’s Kristensen, trying to come back from 1-0 down. I guess he was still happy from his Nations Cup win earlier.

The WRC cars were the only ones the pros crashed all day.

Ian

4

Looks good. I watched it on Eurosport - gunning for McRae.

Shame he didn’t progress further but was a good afternoons tv.

5

Ian

Fantastic pics & write up - merci bien

You are an old romantic aren’t you? Can just imagine your wife’s face when she ended up in the Stadium, after you’d told her you were off to Paris for the weekend

6

WOW, that looked like a cool weekend!!! I spent mine fixing my central heating and rewiring my garage.

Sean…

7

cool weekend IDG… excellento

8

WOW, that looked like a cool weekend!!! I spent mine fixing my central heating and rewiring my garage.

Sean…

Have you got a thing about re-wiring at the moment?

9

WOW, that looked like a cool weekend!!! I spent mine fixing my central heating and rewiring my garage.

Sean…

Have you got a thing about re-wiring at the moment?

LOL, yeah I guess I must have. The scarey thing is everything is working, so surely that means I am one step closer to an explosion!!

10

what camera are you using, blown away by the quality of the pics

11

what camera are you using, blown away by the quality of the pics

That was Nikon D100 (D70 was being fixed following a bounce! ). The difference is the lens, it’s a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR. That’s a large max aperture for a zoom lens (allowing a smaller depth-of-field/what’s in focus) and the vibration reduction (VR) helps too (allows for slower shutter speeds with no shake).

It was a great event to both enjoy racing and photography!

Ian

12

sounds expensive in a b&c 1st service kind of way