Opening Race Ritual?

[Calman]

Try to remember not to look online for any spoilers

OHHH!!! I'd bet the majority of us could write a novel, based on F1 Spoilers people have placed on our lap over the years (not pun intended with 'lap').    I've had many so called mates say "Oh!! let me tell you about the Race today" ... only to be met with "NO!!! I don't want to hear about it, I still have to watch it" .... then they say "It was just that bla bla bla happened, but that won't spoil your race, as I didn't mention the result!" ... then sharp heavy objects get thrown across the room.

I even delayed watching the British GP one year, as a "friend" wanted a lift into the house with his new BBQ.  During conversation, straight out of the blue, "didn't Lewis grab a great win today!" .... I almost dropped the BBQ and enjoy watching his arms change from 2˝ feet in length to 5 feet long!!!!!

All the best,
Cal

[Robem64]

I'm sure some people delight in spoiling it for others!

[cosworth151]

Friday night of Melbourne week-end, I'll probably pop a big bowl of popcorn, fix a drink & put in the DVD of Grand Prix, just to get in the mood.

[Dare]

I'll set my alarm just in case and have my tux
laid out and ready

[Calman]

I'll set my alarm just in case and have my tux
laid out and ready

So ... you're very close to this Tux then Dare?  (I hope it passes FIA regulation 147e, Appendix 4, Paragraph 3)  ... or should we all simply say "Suits You Sir!"

All the best,
Cal

[lkjohnson1950]

Friday night of Melbourne week-end, I'll probably pop a big bowl of popcorn, fix a drink & put in the DVD of Grand Prix, just to get in the mood.

Oh Yeah!! 

[Dare]

I'll set my alarm just in case and have my tux
laid out and ready

So ... you're very close to this Tux then Dare?  (I hope it passes FIA regulation 147e, Appendix 4, Paragraph 3)  ... or should we all simply say "Suits You Sir!"

All the best,
Cal

black tux and brown shoes...how could I go wrong

[Calman]

Well, it's marginally better than "404 Costume Cannot Be Found!" Error!! :-D

Make it 'Your Thing'.

All the best,
Cal

[cosworth151]

black tux and brown shoes...how could I go wrong

That reminds me of the great George Gobel:

[Alianora La Canta]

We will, of course, expect a full travelogue and race report on Hungary in the unique La Canta style.   

That will happen (though I can't remember if I actually finished writing the last one). Note for Calman and anyone else who wasn't here for my April 2016 adventure: one of the standing jokes about my travelogues is that I am arguably the defending world champion of getting lost. Last time, this included the day that convinced me that East Midlands Airport stood with Atlantis, Middle-Earth and Narnia as great mythical locations of the human imagination...

[Calman]

I am arguably the defending world champion of getting lost

Got it, but can't come up with a suitable Pun right now ... give me time! 

Did I also mention, another Opening, well any Race, Ritual from my end, is to shout "Goh" in a tacky game show host type of voice, then I go quiet for around 3 hours, give or take the odd "wheel to wheel" decision which doesn't go my way! "Reffffffff-ah-REEEEE!!!".

Kind Regards.

[lkjohnson1950]

We will, of course, expect a full travelogue and race report on Hungary in the unique La Canta style.   

one of the standing jokes about my travelogues is that I am arguably the defending world champion of getting lost. Last time, this included the day that convinced me that East Midlands Airport stood with Atlantis, Middle-Earth and Narnia as great mythical locations of the human imagination...

When you get lost, you end up in interesting places, adopted by interesting people. When I get lost (which I admit is seldom, I have a knack of knowing where I am even when it's not where I wanted to be.) I end up in empty warehouses or the middle of nowhere,

[Alianora La Canta]

OHHH!!! I'd bet the majority of us could write a novel, based on F1 Spoilers people have placed on our lap over the years (not pun intended with 'lap').   

I've had a few run-ins with spoilers. Our household is very strict about spoilers - the only exception is that if one of us has missed qualifying and the other saw it, we are allowed to say whether it was worth the bother of watching on demand (but not why, if it is). There have been occasions where the presenters reporting on a "replay" or highlights show that such-and-such a driver is OK after an accident has been met with annoyance due to the reassurance coming before coverage of the session where the accident happened...

The best example of a useful spoiler was when I went to a swimming gala that clashed with the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix (having previously put a note in a forum I co-administrated jokingly requesting the stewards excuse me for this). Dad told me after the race that the only interesting thing that happened was that Fisico had failed to yield to Kimi Raikkonen for a lap and a half thanks to inattentive flagging by probably-bored marshalls. My co-admin wrote: "The stewards have come to a decision and uphold the request to be excused. They further request news of any further proposals to skip races are also relayed in advance, so they can likewise miss those races..."

Other people, of course, cannot be expected to understand the subtleties of such exceptions. Dad and I used to get really annoyed with ITV because on multiple occasions, their on-demand F1 races had a thumbnail of that race's podium. I'm not sure the on-demand team ever quite understood their audience's demographic for that show...

BBC 3 was not always an improvement. It became a standing joke that we always walked in on the evening highlights shows (which Dad often needs due to clashing sailing commitments on many Sundays) 3 minutes after the scheduled start time - not to avoid the banter, but simply to make sure we didn't find out who won the race in the "60 Seconds" news round-up that always happens when that particular channel starts broadcasting. Until we started doing this, the F1 results never came with a spoiler alert. There was one occasion after then when we tried the "3-minute rule" and there'd been enough delay on BBC 3 was saying "the following 60 Seconds contains spoilers from the F1 race ea-". The cut-off being from me switching channel very, very quickly*...

There have also been examples where people have got close to spoilering me. The most memorable example was another "swimming gala" example. This time, my parents had kindly recorded the whole thing on video (this was before catch-up TV) and told me I could watch it after school the next day. At lunchtime, one of the support staff - who I didn't know had any interest in sport whatsoever - said to us all, "Did you hear what happened in the race yesterday that made me a bit cross?" I politely informed her that I hadn't, and was waiting to see the race after school. "I have to warn you - are you a Michael Schumacher fan?" Confused, I said not, because the driver I most liked was David Coulthard (I'd learnt through experience that particular school's members did not understand the concept of supporting a team in anything except football, unless it was the home nation in international sport). She replied, "I'm glad you said that. If you'd said Michael, we'd have to have fallen out." We moved onto more pleasant topics, leaving me slightly confused.

Then I went home and watched Austria 2002...

(We did discuss it the next day and agreed that the end-of-race antics from Ferrari made us all feel "a bit cross". And I'll give her credit for ambiguity - she could have been cross simply because Michael had added yet another win to his tally, or because she was secretly a Michael fan and he'd had a DNF of some sort...)

* - They would not have been messing about with the "spoilers" on that particular race, as I well knew from having seen the race replay earlier in the day - that specific time was Japan 2014.

When you get lost, you end up in interesting places, adopted by interesting people. When I get lost (which I admit is seldom, I have a knack of knowing where I am even when it's not where I wanted to be.) I end up in empty warehouses or the middle of nowhere,

I'd done "middle of nowhere" before. Remind me to tell you about the time I practised orienteering for the Duke of Edinburgh award on an allegedly closed loop of footpaths, got spectacularly lost and had the following exchange with Dad (who was at home) over the phone:

"I'm loooost" (imagine this being said in much the same manner as a bleating sheep)
"OK. Can you tell me any landmarks you can see?"
"[about 8 seconds of pause] Hmm... ...I can see a pylon over there..."

I could almost hear the facepalm 10 miles away...

[guest3164]

Sounds a bit like the time I came home from a day trip to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.  Had organised a seat on a coach that otherwise sold travel and tickets to the race and found out on the way home they would drop off in Hendon as opposed to central London which was ideal for me.  I got off and thought to ring my mum who had a car.  The only thing is, a combination of excitement, tiredness from a long day and a mild dose of sun stroke meant I was no use to man nor beast. 

Phone rings
"Mum, can you come and get me please"
"Sure, where are you?"
"I'm not sure you know it"
"Try me"
"Okay, it's *random* road"
"You do remember our friends live there, don't you?"
"Oh"

[Alianora La Canta]

Wow, that is awkward!