Monday, September 29, 2008
The Roaring of The World's Fastest Cars

Alas F1 has hit the shores of the buzzling crowd of Singapore, and the government has slammed the world with an impressive show yet to be done by anyone. Being the 1st country to hold their race in the night, in the middle of the CBD area, Singapore has set out to be the most ambitious country, other than China who held the Beijing Olympic. Everything looked good on the outside. The flyer was up and ready. The circuit with its Italian Nightlights was newly constructed. And seats all over the 5km circuit were ready for visitors for the past 3 days. This can be regarded as one of best money-making schemes Singapore has ever offered.

It was certainly an honour for me to be an usher for the Singtel Singapore Formula 1 GrandPrix. Being able to usher important VVIP guests was quite an experience, and at the same time, being close to the Racing cars. Working with a few of my church friend, our reporting venue was at the Grandstand down at the flyer. The construction they did was astounding. In less than 2 months, Singapore was able to erect multi-storied viewing galleries with laterns, stall, stages and a sweet grandprix ready for the cars to get on. As we were ushering guest into the suite, we were able to peep into the room to see the glamour and poshness of the layout of the room. The view was simply breath-taking. It was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be up there, "acting" like a VVIP yourself

During the ushering, the going wasnt really smooth-sailing. As the big word on the back of our t-shirt read "USHER", we were like magnets attracting nails to ourselves. Questions came flying from all directions, like where is their seats, where is the female toilet ( which was hidden behind the males toilet), where to get earplugs etc. Level 1 suffered the whole blunt of it. However, Level 3 was a lot more peaceful, with only managing the guests that were upstairs.

As the race started proper, I couldnt really watch the race, since I had to be at my position, which was being blocked by the rooms. Nevertheless, I was able to catch a few glimpse of the race through the small flat screen TV in the executive suites once the tinted glass doors opened for food and people to come in and out. It was quite disasterous for Ferrari in this race. Indeed, the Singapore race circuit proved to be an exciting and unexpected race with Alonso being 15th for the qualifying race clinching champion. There were plenty of actions, such as Rakkionien and Pique crashing which brought forth the safety car.

Overall, the experience was worth-while. The money was not too bad either. The next time Singapore has their F1, i would be the one spectating instead ;)