Charlotte race. The CocaCola 600 was the longest race of the year. That may be fun for the drivers and fans (probably not) but it's not really much fun for people working the race. It seemed to last forever.
Our broadcast schedule showed that we were covering the live skydiving show at 5pm and since the race didn't start until 5:45, Rusty and I went up to the roof to watch the exhibition. I wasn't clued into what it was, just that it was going to happen. Turned out that they had 22 skydivers forming a 4 (in the shape of the logo for the new Fantastic Four movie) and the Silver Surfer (a sky surfer with a silver suit on) 'surfed' through the middle of the 4 as they fell from 13,000 feet. I was pretty cool - not great - but pretty cool. The interesting part of it was that it was being transmitted 'real time' back to the television compound by microwave. A friend of mine (Tom Sanders - who I worked for back in the early '90s while filming in Hawaii) invented that technique of filming in freefall and 'beaming' it back to earth. His famous application of this was during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Korea - at the LIVE opening cermonies when the skydivers formed the Olympic Rings above the stadium. It was broadcast around the planet AS IT WAS HAPPENING - shot from his helmet cam. This is a photo from the event.
Anyway, I saw Tom in the Charlotte airport Monday morning and it turns out it WAS him doing the exhibition skydive for the Fantastic Four.
Jessica Alba is one of the stars of the Fantastic Four. All 4 of the stars were on hand for the race. I took a photo with my phone camera from the roof. That's Jessica in the middle. I'm sure she was waving at me :)
I was back at home for just one full day this week. Jan and I went up to St. Augustine for the day on tuesday to take my sail to the sailmakers up there. We had lunch and walked around a bit. Here's a few photos from St. Augustine.
I'm now in Dover Delaware. I'll be here until monday, when I'll go to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. From there, it's off to Michigan.
As I got to Dover Downs (the racetrack here), I had to wait to ask directions from a security guard. I was amazed at how much he looked like my deceased grandfather (who was also a security guard). I had to take a picture of him so mom could see it.
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