Although I (and lots of others) have been working long hours for three straight weeks, I’m finding it hard to believe that today was the last day of WEG.
The final phase of the Driving World Championship was today as well.
The cones competition was by turns exciting (only four double-clear rounds!) and, well, quiet. When the electronic timing equipment stopped working not once but three times, there wasn’t much to do but wait (with any luck, in the shade) for announcements of how the situation was being handled, and of when the competition would resume.
Immediately after the unscheduled break (after having come into the arena twice already to start his round, and having been sent back out when the timing equipment still didn’t work), Chester Weber posted the very first double-clear round of the day; in other words: no course penalties (no balls down or other problems), and no time penalties.
And immediately after Chester’s beautifully executed round, Jim Fairclough came in with his own stellar drive and posted the second double-clear round of the day. They finished first and second (Chester, then Jim) in the cones prize-giving, followed by Christoph Sandmann (GER) and Daniel Wurgler (SUI) in third and fourth. They had driven the other two double-clear rounds.
Sweden’s Tomas Eriksson (in fifth place heading into the cones phase) had the bad luck to drive backwards through a set of cones near the end of the course, thereby eliminating himself from the competition and his team from the bronze-medal position.
Driving for the U.S., Tucker Johnson was in third place heading into the cones phase. His round (one ball down for three course penalties; no time penalties) guaranteed him at least an individual bronze and guaranteed the USA a team silver.
Standing in second place before the cones phase, Ysbrand Chardon (NED) had one ball down but no time penalties and clinched the team gold medal for the Dutch.
Considering Chardon’s 3 penalties points in the cones phase, Boyd Exell (AUS) knew that he had a bit more breathing room than he’d started with. He won the gold medal with a careful drive through the course (no balls down but 3.52 time penalties) and then finished it off with a flourish, by saluting the crowd and galloping through the exit gate.
From where I had stationed myself to photograph the event, I could hear the cheers from each support team as the drivers exited the course and drove back into the warmup arena. As you would expect, there were several rather excited groups of people back there behind the grandstands, ready to congratulate their medal-winning drivers.
Next, the awards ceremony: prize-giving (ribbons through tenth place) for the marathon, prize-giving for the cones, and two medal ceremonies — one for the individual winners and a second one for the team-medal winners.
The drivers brought their turnouts in for each of these ceremonies, and by the time the team medals were awarded, the flag-waving crowd was more than ready to applaud the teams. During the victory laps, each team drove around the arena three (turnouts) abreast, and as they turned down the center line, they cantered toward the exit, galloping out one by one. It was quite a thrilling spectacle!
No doubt you are wondering where the pictures of all of this might be. In my rather tired state this afternoon (after the end of a long, hot day at the end of a long three weeks), I packed everything up to bring it home so I could do this blog post in the evening.
Camera? Check.
Laptop? Check.
Power cord for computer? Check.
Cable to download the photos from the camera onto the laptop? The one that’s still sitting on my desk at the office? Oh.
The WEG security bubble is still in place, or I would’ve driven back out to the office tonight to get it … I promise. But quickly driving to the office to pick something up is, well, impossible at the moment. So I’m afraid the photos won’t be posted quite yet.
But please do check back to see them … they’re good!
The Slower Road 