The Legend - Buck Hysen

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Silverstone2000

Silverstone 2000

Sunday 23rd April

4:45am on the dot, and Rich and Keith arrive at my door. Surprisingly I don't have a hangover, although its cold, foggy and I can barely see my hand in front of my face, let alone them arriving.
A quick stop for petrol and we are on the outskirts of Swindon by 5am..... with Oxford only 50 minutes away, and Silverstone only a little further, we are sure we will be in well before 7am.

Rich and Keith spend a lot of time on the way, arguing about whether the race will go ahead. I am confident it will, fully expecting the fog to clear.

6am and we are well into Oxford, with Silverstone only a few miles away.... we pass the crossroad's with the huge fence either side (One day I'll actually remember what that is called).
Surprisingly there's hardly a car on the road though and we do not hit traffic until we pass through the tiny village and hit the country lane leading to Silverstone. We all put it down to the terrible rain over the past 3 days.

Luckily it's only 6:20am when we hit the heavy traffic, although even then it is nowhere near as bad as other times, plus we are only about a mile from the track :o).

6:45am and we are into the car park, Richard's choice of vehicle was not perfect for the conditions.... and as he parks the car we know we are stuck before we even get out. But fuck it! we decide to worry about that later and get ourselves a decent spot. A decision that would come back to haunt us.

With folding seats, camcorders, camera's, caps and flags in tow, we head to virtually the first place we come to, Club corner.

7:45am and me and Rich decide to buy some merchandise..... are both amazed (Although not surprised) at how much more expensive F1 stuff is compared to at a Toca touring car meeting a few months before. The Jordan cap I am wearing on the day, which I paid only £7 for... has now miraculously shot up to £26, not to mention the huge Damon Hill flag which has gone up from £6 to £20 (Jees!, The guys retired).
The more I look around, the more I smile with how much I saved just a few months earlier :o). We are both suckers for F1 gear though, and I return with a new Jaguar cap and flag, which look great, a few keyrings and lighters, ashtrays, etc, etc.

Not long after we return, we are off again to double check if there are any better view points. From where we are we have a great view of cars coming down into Club corner (On our right) before racing slightly up the hill (Right in front of us). Rich on the other hand wants to move further around the corner so that we can see the cars coming down into Club from right in front of us, plus see them racing further up the hill when they turn right. I try to assure him that we won't see any more due to there being more people on this bank.

Our first vantage point. Most are still sitting, but there are not many in this spot

After several minutes we decide to move if this section gets anymore crowded. I know it's gonna, but the bank we are on has a ridge at the back, and so we are raised higher than everyone else, not to mention we have a huge wall to our right which is not being used, and we can probably stand on at any point.

Not too sure of the time, but the fog is beginning to lift, although it has been announced that the drivers will not be doing their usual parade lap... What a bummer!
I take out the camcorder though and record a couple of minutes of the first race (Porsche's I think).
Nothing much happening so I start to put the camcorder back in it's case... and Wham!!! two cars collide just yards from where we are sitting, and one flips over several times before resting on it's wheels..... Now I'm more than a little pissed that I missed that.... We all agree to move.

After a 5/6 minute walk around Club corner, we reach a part which doesn't actually look that bad... although it is still only about 11am, and I can see by the empty seats that this area is going to be jam packed by race time.
I'm happy though, I've managed to get some really good footage of most of the cars as they warm up. And fuck me, the sun is also coming out!

Me and Rich looking forward to the race (His frown is intentional)

A great view for the warm up laps

As predicted, Club corner is packed by race time.... myself, and everyone else in front of me has a perfect view of the track.... but I know that the 2nd that race starts, every fucker will stand up, leaving me, Rich and Keith with a view of hundreds of heads.
What did I tell ya....... I can't see a fucking thing now.... and I am seriously annoyed about it. Rich is OK, he is stood behind two short blokes, who don't have a MASSIVE GREAT FUCKING FERRARI FLAG IN FRONT OF THEM.

These two stood up as the cars came down into Club for the 1st time. If that wasn't enough to
fuck up my view... they then open out a huge Ferrari flag.

I try and watch the first 10 or so laps before I wrap my camcorder strap and my camera strap around my neck and head off back where we started. The race for the first 6 places is awesome and after finding a small wall halfway back from where we started, I decide to stand on this and record and take photo's like mad.
I have a great spot and am happy as pig in shit with the race... and my view of it.

THEN.... Some ignorant twat... this time with a massive Jaguar flag, stands directly in front of me.
Feeling banished I go back to my original plan and go and stand where I started.

Rich meanwhile has followed me around Club corner, leaving Keith by himself... and asks me what I am doing.

I have a pretty good view from where I am so I record some more, watch a couple of laps, before having a snack and going to where I first started. Leaving Rich to go back with Keith.

Now I'm back... the wall is still empty of people, there's also a gate right down by the track... which I hadn't noticed before. Nobody is there, I start chatting to the guard and he lets me film the cars coming around Club corner from a gap in the gate.... This is cool, I'm only yards from the cars as they slow right down to turn right (My left), and I get some great camcorder footage.
And, that sun is really getting hot. This is turning into a good day.

I stay in this spot for almost the rest of the race and just soak up the atmosphere. And despite having an unexpectedly crap camera on the day... this is the second time I have taken a camcorder to Silverstone... and I got some stunning shots (Especially as the cars slowed right down to turn at Club corner).

The other downside to this position is that we had no screen near us, although relying on the commentary from the loud speakers and others in the crowd we roared a DC victory (He had a hell of a lot of supporters near us).

I THINK it was close to 3pm by the time we started making our way back to the car. I know we were there by about 10 past 3. Horror though as we arrive! We are totally and utterly blocked in.
Two complete fucking morons had slid their cars and got stuck right in front of us... both facing diagonally just a foot from Richard's front bumper... leaving it totally impossible for us to move forwards or backwards.

We are stuck.. Keith walks across the field to check out the traffic moving out of the car park

By 4pm we were all more than a little pissed off. Cars were not moving one little bit, the field was like a mud bath... and about 1 out of every 3 cars was needing to be towed out of the field by a tractor/fork lift.
Knowing our wait was going to be hours rather than minutes myself and Keith decide to find a place to pee.

5pm and we had moved about a foot. The sheets of metal which were supposed to guide cars out of the field and act as a makeshift road, had all but fallen apart... and now the entire field was black with mud, as everyone looked for a short cut to the gate.... total dickheads who just made it worse for everyone else, by getting stuck, causing chaos and stopping everyone else from freely moving out of the field.

One very large man almost clocked a young guy who stupidly tried to race across an open part of the field but only succeeded in skidding his car and very nearly smashing into the big blokes car. A miserable couple of hours almost got very good as the big guy bounded towards the young guy.... Unfortunately he just gave him a mouthful of obscenities.

At 6:45pm we had finally started to move. The two cars ahead of us had been towed out. We had formed into the queue and were very very slowly moving. We didn't much care at this point... we were so annoyed.

Finally at 7:20pm we made it out of the field. A mere 4 FUCKING HOURS to get 500 yards out of a car park. BUT still we had to slowly move back down the narrow country road and through the village before we could even think about driving at more than about 30 MPH.
At last we did though, and at 9:30pm we finally got home. (Fucking amazing that it only took 40 minutes to get back to Swindon once we got away from the traffic at Silverstone).

I had to go back to work (After a 2 week holiday) at 1am the next morning... so to say I was pissed off was more than a little bit of an understatement.
I was shattered... I got undressed to have a shower and it didn't hit me until I stepped under the water, that I was quite badly sunburned on my face and shoulders (I found out later that so were Rich and Keith).

The fog and drizzle that greeted this day did improve... and it got pretty hot at some points... but quite how the hell we all got so sun burnt was a mystery.

I thoroughly enjoyed a great day at the British Grand Prix. The view was not the best (Grandstand tickets next year). But for the racing, the noise, the atmosphere, and just the experience of the day is enough to make me want to go back again.

Disappointments of the day:
Crap view at times
The wait to get out at the end (Over 4 hours)

What I'll remember:
The great racing and atmosphere
The incredible noise
DC Winning

There's more.... but that's what I'll remember most about the 2000 British Grand Prix

Kevin Porter