Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, April 10, 2006 9:00 AM

Long Beach Grand Prix Weekend


Monday and Tuesday are very productive days at Northrop Grumman and with the weights after work. I get a lot done on models and simulations at work. And with the weights, I have the heaviest lifting days ever - pre or post Hepatitis B. And as I'm loading more weight on the barbell or dumbells, I think that I've arrived at the limit. But the lifts are made with grunting and groaning, but with the feeling that there is more to come.

On Monday I call karl - my former tennis doubles partner. The school where he received his PhD (Florida) is playing the school where I got my PhD (UCLA) in the basketball finals. I tell Karl that I could care less who won, but I had to call and say Hi anyway.

Monday and Tuesday are also both wet days. On Tuesday I leave work a bit early to beat traffic. After lifting weights, I relax to the sound of pouring rain. I'm glad that I've already come home to a nice warm house and am not sitting in traffic.

Thursday is a good day as I make progress at work, vow to eat healthier foods, have a good session with the weights, and mow the lawn. With the weights I again match the lifts from Monday with the heaviest weights I've ever lifted as I make a push to a week off from the weights. Late in the afternoon as I'm mowing the lawn Person T_U calls and wants me to go with him to the area near the Long Beach Grand Prix for some of the side events. But I don't get his call until after he's left for the events.

Friday is another good day at Northrop Grumman and then a good session with the weights. My last session for about a week as I start a pre-planned recovery period (to let the joints recover even though I have no joint pain now). After doing the laundry I print driver information for the Saturday Long Beach CART practice and qualifying sessions.

On Saturday I get up and run before the raceday events. Just after I leave the shower there is persistent knocking on the door. Eventually I get to the door and there's a guy who wants me to move my car so that he can put a 30 yard trash receptacle in my driveway. (You have to have a permit to have on left on the street.) I call the bathroom contractor because this receptacle is so big that the entire house could fit in it. (Well, not really, but it IS big!) After confirmation that it is needed, I direct the receptacle deliveryman and then I finish getting ready for the day in Long Beach.

A nice train ride drops me off a block from the ticket office and track. Except that I had to refuse a conversation with a lady on the train after a few sentences. She starts it with, "What did you do last Sunday?" And I have to have her repeat it three times before I understand what she is saying.

I finally respond with, "I don't remember".

And when she continues with, "You didn't go to church", I have to decide whether I politely say "No thank you" and turn away or if I say, "I went to MY church of cycling, followed by MY church of Formula One racing, and followed by an extremeley religious experience having sex with my boyfriend". I choose the former.

After buying my ticket I start walking over to nice viewing area and a guy, with a 3 year old boy on his shoulders, asks me if I did the Los Angeles river bicycle ride (because I'm wearing the river ride t-shirt). And we have a nice little conversation as we both walk over to the nice viewing area. Finally, the guy says that I should wear the same t-shirt at this year's ride so that he can find me and we can ride together. Fair enough.

I meet up with three co-workers (and miss two others in person though we do talk on the phone) for the practice and qualifying session. For the CART cars I cheer for Justin "The Flying Giraffe" Wilson and am rewarded when he gets the second fastest qualifying time. It is a fun and entertaining day. During the day I have a number of calls from contractors and Person C_T and co-workers. The group that I am with wonder if I always get this many telephone calls. And I just shrug them off.

When I arrive home, one bathroom is completely demolished and the second is under way. Near 7 pm the construction workers leave. It has been a productive day for them also! And I am tired from being in the sun all day and doing a lot of walking, so I'm in bed to read and go to sleep a bit after 9 pm.

On Sunday I get out for the aquarium ride and can hear the cars from a supporting class to the Long Beach Grand Prix when I'm near the aquarium. But I know what's going on so I continue on my way and head for home. After a shower and some nmiscellaneous cleaning, I get ready for the MotoGP motorcycle race from Qatar.

In the middle of the race and towards the end I cannot bear to watch. I keep getting so excited that I have to temporarily look away or tell the television production crew, "Go focus on the tight race for 6th and 7th where Pedrosa and Melandri are passing each other twice a lap. But don't focus on the lead because you'll jinx Rossi". Rossi has stayed in touch with the leaders and taken advantage of slight inaccuracies to muscle his way into the lead. With 3 laps left he has a 0.25 second lead with 2nd place gaining. And with the front end of his bike chattering away, with Rossi having no business contending for the lead let alone having it, with his Yamaha teammates many many seconds back in 9th and 12th place, Rossi just literally wills his bike to stay upright and win. After the race Rossi is so excited and he's celebrating and jumping around as if it is his first ever win in the premier class as opposed to his 54th. The announcers keep talking about Rossi being able to make something happen when his back is against the wall. (More on this later.)

Afterwards I watch the 250cc motorcycle race from Qatar and my favorite, Yuki Takahashi, only gets 9th place. And then I watch the Long Beach Grand Prix and my favorite, Justin "The Flying Giraffe" Wilson, gets 2nd place.

After relaxing a bit I do some abdominal and lower back work and get out for a 40 minute walk. (The abdominal and lower back work will continue this week because there aren't really any sore joints there to let recover.) On this walk I take my iShuffle (small iPod) that was a Christmas present. It is loaded with a lot of new songs and old.

I start out for the walk and some of the songs are 5 years old - from the time that I was hanging out with the KM. And some are a bit later when life changed. But some of them are energetic and enthusiastic and make me start thinking about the MotoGP race again. I start getting the tingles up my spine when I think about Valentino Rossi just willing his bike on - saying, "You can just keep chattering away all you want. Just stay upright as I push you farther and farther past what the laws of physics say is possible". And I want that ability! Maybe not with motorcycle riding, but with something. And then I start recalling the 1978 South African Grand Prix where the leader of the race ran over the debris from a fatal crash of a fellow racer and he kept leaking water and oil for the entire race. And he just willed the car across the line with every single light on the dashboard lighting up saying, "Shut me off now because I'm going to die". But Nicki Lauda was able to just will the car across the line and win. And I want that ability!

Thus I have described another premonition coming true. I thought about telling the lady on the train about a religious experience and now I have had it. Just thinking about people with the ability to will something past the boundaries of physics, to me, is a religious experience as the tingles run up my spine.