F1 Montreal Grand Prix 2006

Montreal Grand Prix F1 2006
October 2006

Bonjour,

The 3 kids and I drove up to Montreal this past weekend for the annual F1 race. I have not been to an F1 race in 20 years so I forgot how fast and loud these cars are! There were people from all over the world there but I guess from what I heard mostly from the US, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and England. The Spaniard Fernando Alonso (driving a Renault) won the race with Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) in second.

Despite heavy rain in NY metro, is was dry and sunny in Montreal. Lots of people from NY metro were there with nice sports cars especially Ferraris (we opted to be comfortable so we took the Ford minivan with Sony Playstation - a wise move). Coming back into the USA there was a 1 hour backup at the border control but I had 3 red Ferrari Testa Rosa sports cars directly behind and next to me on the drivers side so I had plenty of entertainment. Luckily we had our passports with us so we got through without a hassle. It's 375 miles from Rye and a surprisingly easy drive as its straight up I-87 to Montreal. Actually Erica drove about 150 miles each way which helped a lot. We spent Saturday night in Plattsburgh, NY which is one hour south of Montreal on I-87 and then drove to Montreal on Sunday morning at 7:00 am. The race is held on an island in the St. Lawrence river (next to the city) which was the site of the 1967 Expo worlds fair and is now a big city park. We parked downtown on the street in the financial district sorrounded by big banks. I got Canadian dollars by making a withdrawal on an atm - always an easy way to get local currency. We took a cab to the track (less than 10 minutes) and on the way back to downtown we took the subway under the river (very clean and efficient subway). The event was beautifully organized especially considering the 10s of thousands of people who were there. It seems most of the people took the subway and Montreal was ready with trains every 2 minutes. I would highly recommend this trip! If you go remember to buy tickets months in advance as they were sold out well before race day. We'll probably go again next year!

By the way we filled up on regular gas in Montreal at US$3.67 per gallon - and I thought we had it bad! Next time I'll fill up in Plattsburg where it was $2.91 per gallon. The Canadian dollar has strengthened a lot against the US dollar and is now worth 90 US cents.

best regards,

Bob