Allison’s POV # 3 -Saturday and Sunday
Yesterday after checking in to the Zign hotel and dropping our luggage at our room, Jason and I had lunch in the hotel restaurant. Then joined the rest of AE for taxi ride to a central area where they could eat lunch. Most of AE (Brent, Ryan and Ryan etc) had come a month ago for warmup so they knew where to go.
While we waited for a taxi to come, we bought beers at a nearby convenience store, Bought one for the local guy who arranged a taxi for us, seems a beer in a can for the equivalent of $1 UDS helped to negotiate better taxi fare.
Common in Thailand that taxis are in the back of a truck, but covered and fairly secure. Also benefits as there were 9 of us to ride together.
We ended up at a large Hilton which had a mall inside of it, across the street from the beach and just a block or 2 from the Hard Rock, from outside appeared to be size of Tampa or Ft. Lauderdale Seminole Hard Rock Casino.
Maifield chose a Mama-Mia italian restaurant for lunch in the mall. Didn’t see much of the mall but saw a few shoe stores reminiscent of a Finish Line or Champs (Nikes etc) in US, and a Starbucks, along with one or two other restaurants, they pointed out an Irish pub that they had visited last trip also.
Funniest thing here is that the electric/ phone cables strung along the side of the road are beyond a mess. In US for example, there may be only 2-5 cables? Here there are probably over 50. And when one is no longer in use, it Appears they cut it but leave it hanging. Brent said he saw someone climbing on the wires, in the States we use ladders.
Leaving the Hilton Plaza we ran in to some of AE UK- the Craggs, Drescher etc. They went to eat and we had another eventful, scenic ride back to hotel in the back of a truck.
Brent, Ryan, et al, wanted to go later to Hard Rock for a party by the pool, foam party they called it.
Wanted to meet again at 9 or 10 but Jason and I were too tired. I’ll see if I can get any details of that to share.
Sunday morning, day 2, we awoke around 6:30am, had breakfast, pretty typical, buffet of pastries, eggs, waffles, fruit and yogurt. Thai/Chinese version also available, Congee, meats, things that look like lunch foods. Many Asians also ate American style breakfast too. The coffee is pretty good and strong at least.
Brent and the gang had been waiting outside for the bus, while we ate breakfast. We missed the bus but found a taxi who was more than willing to drive us to the track.
Driver charged us 500 baht, but we had a/c, the car is like a Toyota Matrix, so plenty of room, driver has cd player with screen (visuals) and we are presently listening to and watching Fergie and Black Eyed Peas video. Actually now I think it’s MTV … Interesting … Tv?
We’ve now arrived at the track. It’s just slightly amazing. Layout and track itself are huge. Intense. Bright colors, lots of tables, storage containers (room to rent with a/c, teams have paid for to pit and store boxes. Outside covered pitting also appears to be quite spacious. Manicured lawns, in some places, other places I think they were hoping we would not look. I.e. behind the track lol
We found the first shipment of our boxes and got let in to our container. The a/c finally started to work, we had chairs provided and had to find tables, finally arrived hours later. But Jasons race gear isn’t here yet anyways – hopefully Monday. I’ve sent some emails to track it down and see about delivery but it is the weekend after all.
The property is amazing and privately owned. It also contains a ravine or lake where they run RC power boats.
There is a very tiny hobby shop that also sells fishing poles and plastic bait.
I noticed a small tank where men were fishing – the tank looked man made- separate from the lake -perhaps only 10 foot by 10 foot approximate.
What they do with their catch I don’t know – it looked like shrimp, prawns perhaps?
I’ve heard the property owner also owns other animals and large fish, I’ll try to venture to that part of the property later on.
Back to the reason we’re here… The first day everyone set up their pit tables, began to wrench on the cars some, talked to teams about getting fuel or any goods that the drivers didn’t carry here personally.
Name badges, with driver photos were issued, check in, some tech.
JConcepts has taken the opportunity of this Worlds to again release new products. I’ll dedicate another section to more details.
We have boxes of our original, classic and 2008 IFMAR worlds pole position and fastest lap tires, we also have carried in our airplane luggage some new tires, the IFMAR 3D’s and the Hybrids, along with a new Dish style buggy wheel, the Inverse, and a new black 1/8 wing.
We spent the day with the news web sites, Red RC, Neo Buggy, Live RC and the team showing the new products. Some need no explanation. 🙂
In simple terms – it’s a lot of oooohs and aaahh’s.