Peaceful, Easy Feeling

October 7, 2010



Coral Castle



Peaceful, Easy Feeling

This has been a crazy busy and exceedingly satisfying week, between our trip to Homestead to see the Indy Car season finale last weekend and our trip this weekend to Blackberry Farm, Tennessee to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday, a lot has been going on. It seems that we have had something almost every evening keeping us on the go and helping us get acclimated for what is the busiest time of our year.

Michael & Jean





It started while we were still in Homestead, when we visited the fascinating Coral Castle with Michael & Jean on the morning prior to attending the Indy Car race. While Kathy & I have made a couple of previous visits, it was the first time for Michael and Jean to see the amazing coral rock structure that sits on US1 in Homestead.







The Coral Castle is one man’s obsessive creation made completely of heavy coral rock, hand carved with homemade tools and moved in to place by a single man over a 28 year period back in the 30s and 40s. The place is a monument to ingenuity, hard work and obsessive unrequited love and well worth a visit if you find yourself in Homestead.







On the trip back to Key West on Sunday, Kathy & I stopped in at the Laura Quinn Florida Keys Wild Bird Center at MM94 in Islamorada. The center was named in honor of the late Laura Quinn who recently passed away and who dedicated her life to rescuing and rehabilitating injured birds. The center could certainly use a little TLC, but the mission of saving birds is still on-going and there are plenty of rehabilitating birds on hand to see.





The caged injured birds seem to attract wild birds as well and hundreds of wild birds can be seen at the facility that is nestled along the water’s edge among a beautiful mangrove forest. I sure hope that the place is able to survive and ultimately thrive without the dynamic leadership of Laura Quinn.



Once back in Key West, we had the good fortune to have a couple of different friends in town visiting. Our friend Kerry was here for the week from her home in Estes Park and I had the pleasure of spending a wonderful evening hanging out with some fine wine, great conversation at the home of our friend Suzanne where Kerry was staying. It was almost like a trip back in time as the level of friendship and casual relaxation was the same as it was when hanging out was a frequent occurrence some 20 years ago.

Kerry & Suzanne

Halloween Prep

Rick & Carol

Also in town this week was the mother of one of my close friends from Indianapolis. Carol and her friend Rick are currently living in West Palm Beach and after much anticipation made their first visit to Key West this week. I was able to meet them for drinks at the Porch and spend a great night reconnecting. It was such a nice evening, I just wish we could have spent more time hanging out. Hopefully they will enjoy Key West so much that they will return soon.

South Florida Symphony

Chee-Yun

The reason that I had to rush off is that the music director of the Key West Symphony (South Florida Symphony) Sebrina Maria Alfonso had invited us as her guest to attend the opening night performance of the Symphony at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center. Not normally a symphony attendee, I must say that the performance was incredible. We were so impressed with both the Symphony itself and the guest soloist, the amazing Chee-Yun. We look forward to getting back to see the symphony again soon.

Coral Castle

Florida Keys Wild Bird Center

South Florida Symphony

Cafes do Brasil Indy 300

October 6, 2010







Cafes do Brasil Indy 300

With a mere 11 points separating championship contenders Dario Franchitti and Will Power before the green flag dropped, the Indy Car season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Saturday night turned out to be as exciting as expected, coming down right to the last few laps before the championship was decided.





Having pit passes with pre-race access, we stayed down on the grid until just before the race itself started, watching race preparations. It was cool watching the teams bring the cars out and line them up and then seeing the drivers coming out for the pre-race ceremony. We got to see my buddy Jason and his Venom Energy drink team prepping Marco Andretti’s car and see all the meticulous preparations that go into fielding one of the cars.

Jason & Michael



Kathy

Just before the command to start engines, we made our way to our seats high above the start finish line to watch the start of the race. The crowd was pretty dismal in size, an indication as to why this will be the last Indy Car race at Homestead for the near future. The good news is that we had plenty of room to stretch out and enjoy the perfect evening for racing. It was pleasantly warm, with a nice breeze and low humidity and a beautiful sunset during the early portion of the race.

Ashley Judd



Alex Tagliani

Needing to gain every possible point possible, polesitter Dario Franchitti lead early and often, darting off and dominating the first half of the race. Will Power needed to keep Dario in his sights and after falling back early, was steadily working his way back toward the front and was with-in sight of the championship and charging in 4th place when disaster struck on lap 135. Power drifted high in turn 4 while passing lapped cars and brushed the wall, damaging his suspension and eventually knocking him out of the race.







With his main competition gone, all Dario needed to do was get a decent finish and the championship would be his. Right away, he assumed a much more cautious approach dropping back to a conservative 10th place and letting others fight it out for the race win. The strategy almost cost him when Milka Duno crashed out in front of him, but he avoided disaster and brought the car home claiming the championship by a mere 5 points. It was Franchitti’s second straight Indy Car championship and 3rd in 4 years.

Franchitti, Dixon & Power

Franchitti & Power

Rafa Matos
With Franchitti playing it safe, the actual race became suddenly much more exciting as first Marco Andretti and then Scott Dixon leading as the laps wound down. Dixon would hold on for the race win and the most excitement reserved for the fierce battle for 2nd between Andretti teammates Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick. It was lap after lap of darting and weaving as Patrick tried and tried getting around the suddenly very wide car of Kanaan. She finally got around with a great inside pass on the final laps as she took home 2nd place in what was probably her best drive ever.

Danica Patrick





Target Chip Ganassi Racing

The Last Lap

October 5, 2010

Brandon Wagner



Marco Andretti & Michael

The Last Lap

Homestead Motor Speedway was opened in 1995 as part of the economic redevelopment of South Florida after he devastating Hurricane Andrew pummeled the area in 1992. It has been host to Indy Car racing since the CART series first race there in the spring of 1996. Since that time I have had the good fortune to attend every Indy car race held at the facility including races held under the CART banner, the Champ Car World Series and most recently the Indy Racing League.





I have witnessed triumph and tragedy ranging from Greg Moore’s dazzling final race win in 1999 to the tragic death of driver Paul Dana during practice in 2006. Sadly though, this year marks the final Indy Car race at the beautiful facility for the near future. Poor attendance and a financial stand-off between the track owners and the league mean that this year’s season finale will be a bittersweet occasion.





Jean & Michael

As always, Kathy & I headed up to Homestead to catch the qualifying and final practice session. We had reservations at the nearby Redland Hotel in downtown Homestead, but we first headed to the track where we were meeting some friends, Michael & Jean who also were up from Key West to attend the race with us. We were fortunate to have all access pit and paddock passes and Kathy & I were even surprised with passes to the Andretti Motorsports Hospitality area from our friend Jason who works on driver Marco Andretti’s team.

Jason

Kathy

Tony Kanaan

These passes allowed us to join the drivers, team and sponsors in the private hospitality area throughout the weekend, so we got to enjoy a place to relax, enjoy fabulous catered food and drinks and hang out with the team throughout the weekend. It was another wonderful gesture by Jason that is much appreciated.

Dario Franchitti

Will Power



Unlike the contrived NASCAR championship “chase”, the Indy Car season championship seems to always come down to the last race of the season without any manufactured drama. This year was no different as Penske driver Will Power came in to the race with a meager 12 point lead in the championship over Dario Franchitti of Target Chip Ganassi Racing, meaning every point and position was incredibly valuable and meaning the championship would not be decided until the last lap.

Michael

Jean



Qualifying was pretty dramatic as Will Power seemed to have the pole and the bonus point that comes with it in hand until Franchitti came out and outdueled him to capture the pole and edge ever closer to the elusive championship lead that Power had held since the first race of the season.

Wagner pulls into Victory Lane

Hinchcliffe, Wagner & Cunningham

Fuzzy Zoeller

We watched the exciting Firestone Indy Lights race from the pits. The minor league of the Indy Cars, the Lights race was won by former midget driver Brandon Wagner after a furious duel with James Hinchcliffe by 0.7006 seconds with Wade Cunningham finishing third and pole sitter Pippa Mann coming home fourth. J.K. Vernay captured the season championship. We had a great time watching the victory lane celebration as Wagner celebrated his first victory with race sponsor and golf legend Fuzzy Zoeller.