Earlier this year, having just returned from a UW Hockey game in Madison, Wisconsin, I almost wrote an entry about how the horn that goes off after a goal is scored is the best noise in sports.
It’s a good thing I didn’t.
Because now, four months after that trip to Wisconsin, I’ve found the most glorious sound at any sporting event: the wail of a Formula 1 engine at full song -19000 rpm. To put that in some context, the Ferrari F430 will hit its rev limiter at 9000. You see, I’m writing this blog entry not from my normal seat (a desk at Youth Radio’s super-cool new downtown Oakland office) but from Indianapolis, Indiana – the home of Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix.
Now I could talk about how amazing it is to see a 22-year-old rookie win his second grand prix in a row, or how much the Ferrari team needs to step it up in the next few weeks (a lot) if they want to win the championship, or I could even just talk about how darn shiny those cars are. But I won’t. This entry is about the onslaught of sound that first blasted toward my ears on Friday, June 15th.
I’d been planning this trip along with my uncle, Mark (a fellow F1 fan and generally awesome person who helped put this trip together), and my grandfather. As we approached Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first practice session, I heard the sound. By the time I got into the speedway, all I wanted (or could) hear was that wail.
We watched from the start-finish straight, where the cars were flat out coming off one of the turns on the oval track (the F1 cars run partially on the IMS oval, which is what the Indy 500 uses, and partially on a road course inside the track). No words can adequately describe that beautiful, violent noise. I had seen F1 on the TV before, even turned the volume up really loud to get a good listen, but this was something else entirely. Between the noise the car was already making and the canyon of seats that bounce the sound in every direction – it was breathtaking.
The best way to imitate the sound is to do as follows: scream, in as high and as loud a voice as you can, “YEEEEEEEEEEEEE-OWWWWWWWW!” It’s like God screaming at you.
Sitting in the grandstands at Indy, I could completely forget all of the technology, development, and money that went into the cars (and I honestly couldn’t have cared less about their carbon footprint). I could just listen to the deafening song of the V8 Formula 1 engines. For the next two days, I searched out that sound and got a fantastic look at the cars. I spent one practice session at turn 8, a fast left-hander coming off of the back straightaway, hearing the cars shave off just enough speed to make it through the corner (with varying degrees of success – I had a great view of Jarno Trulli overshooting the corner and ending up in the grass).
So I got to hear – for a few all-too-short days – some of the most technologically advanced cars in the world, revving their engines to seventh gear and 1900 revolutions per minute before they cut all of that speed in a matter of a few feet for a tight corner. Fantastic.
It’s been just about thirty hours since that beautiful soundtrack last assaulted my eardrums (at the time of writing), and I miss it already. Now I have to wait at least another year before I can hear it again (F1 management and IMS haven’t reached a deal yet, check the F1 website July 12th). That just makes me very, very sad.
P.S.: I’ll have videos and pictures up in a few days.
Posted by savidgesports 