Goat Rodeo

Santa Rosa was, to quote my good friend MikeW, a Goat Rodeo. To quote another good friend TobiasD, "die wetter ist ekelhaft". One of the worst storms in California in years.

There was a lot of screaming going on yesterday, fortunately none of it was directed at me. But don't take my word for it, read about it here.

Behind the scenes, we were hearing terms like "no fucking way in hell" from the RF guys concerning pretty much anything. Aircraft were grounded for safety reasons by the Federal Aviation Administration. No GPS telemetry, no cameras, no audio, not even race radio most of the time. The TV show consisted of 1:45 showing little kids jumping through puddles at the finish, then 15 minutes of 60 guys loafing half-heartedly through a few laps around Santa Rosa @ 20 mph, then Mancebo throwing up his arms in victory.

A certain TV commentator (you all know who I mean) screamed at the Producer after Producer forced him to read the results "as of 3 laps before the finish" as "the results". Senile Old Drunk Commentator (SODC) was insulted, because he'd never heard of such a thing before - just like the time he was insulted during the 2007 Prologue that Timing & Scoring "must have messed up" Jason Donald's time because Donald was in the lead, and SODC had never heard of the kid. Well here's a news flash SODC....Jason Donald's time was 100% correct that day in 2007, and Producer was correct yesterday. The race was, in fact, called . . . as of 3 laps before the finish. So scoring & timing was right both times, and you went off like a roman candle both times, despite the fact that you were WRONG.

The results were delayed by two hours due to the glacial pace of the decision-making by the head commissaire, so I didn't get out of there until about 7:30. A quick stop at my sister's house to say hello, drive to Santa Cruz, arrive and flop into bed around 11:00.

At this level, race stages usually start at a leisurely 11AM or noon. For some unknown reason, today's stage (which goes across the Golden Gate Bridge) kicks off at something like 8:30 or 9 AM, so TV crew call is at 5:30. Good thing, because there was some sort of mixup with the hotel rooms last night, and the whole crew wound up at a Best Western All Suites in Santa Cruz, which is a sucky hotel. Noisy, right next to the road, with paper-thin walls. Oh well, I'll sleep next week at home. So all told, I will have spent a grand total of slightly less than 6 hours at this hotel.

I'll try (again) to get some photos today, but die wetter is supposed to be ekelhaft again, so all bets are off.