Five blocks later, I blinked twice and held my breath at the sea of people blanketing Dolores Park and both sides of the street. My god. The last time I saw anything close to this magnitude was Halloween in the Castro a couple of years ago where foot traffic was moving throughout the night thanks the police foot patrols. At the start of the race, Red Bull estimated 60,000 people were there, a world record. An hour later, they said it was 75,000. Their website officially clocked it at 100,000! There’s a San Francisco first ya. People were hardly moving mainly because there was no crowd control. Thank goodness there were no accidents that I’m aware of. Nevertheless, I was definitely pumped up. You’re in San Francisco for a cra
zy event. Whaddya expect?
I tiptoed and strained my neck for about 15 minutes on the sidelines behind a row of people but only had a peephole view as my peripherals were blocked by taller people (which meant everyone), trees, and people hanging on trees. Man, if it weren’t for my unstable knee, I would have climbed that tree like a professional tree hugger. That was a primo advantage point and with shade as the warm temperatures were definitely climbing.
zy event. Whaddya expect?I tiptoed and strained my neck for about 15 minutes on the sidelines behind a row of people but only had a peephole view as my peripherals were blocked by taller people (which meant everyone), trees, and people hanging on trees. Man, if it weren’t for my unstable knee, I would have climbed that tree like a professional tree hugger. That was a primo advantage point and with shade as the warm temperatures were definitely climbing.
San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval kicked off the race with the ceremonial test run on a Red Bull’s official cart. All I could see was five seconds of the back of his helmet and cart. I couldn’t get a good camera shot since I couldn’t see beforehand when the cart was coming down the hill front of me. It drove kind of slow and the crowd cheered for getting the party started. Well, I just couldn’t stay here to only see the back of the contestants. What happens if I miss a a crash and flying bodies? Must find a better advantage point. So I pushed my way up a more congested block and wormed my way in front of a jumbo screen (swe
et!) next to the cart entrance waiting line. Score! I don’t have camera shots of the carts going down the track but it’s better than nothing.I knew the 34 contestants were going to be judged on speed, design creativity and fun but I didn’t know they had to perform a skit at pre-launch. How cool is that! I laughed my ass off, ooohed, flinched and held my breath as carts crashed into haystack sidelines and drivers tumbled out of their vehicles at the shock, awe, and delight (how S+M) of everyone. Most of the skits were more memorable than the race itself.
I don’t have pictures of them but the winners are Testoste Rod (Only in SF), Team Hugger and Team Trash. Team Hugger represented the Berkeley tree huggers. How p.c.! Their skit was definitely entertaining. A tree hugger was hanging around the tree shaped vehicle and a cop chased him away. The hugger then mounts the horizontal tree stump (his steering position, in case you’re wondering), removes the cover of the front end to reveal a sawed off, pencil shaped cone. Very realistic.
Team Trash’s cart didn’t look very appealing; well then again it was made by recyclables. Can't get too fancy on big metal shopping cart. The team is really are garbage men to the core. Kudo’sfor keeping it real.
My Top Five:
5. Squid Team: The one and only all women team concocted a magenta giant squid; with its tentacles flying through the wind was a quite sight. And they didn’t crash. Smooth sailing. Who said women are bad drivers? When asked if she liked calamari, the driver said she doesn’t eat seafood. That’s a good one.
4. Taco Truck: Represented the Mission for its Latin American flavors and the taco trucks that feed our city streets. Besides the Twin Peaks/Coit Tower/Lombard Street and SFPD carts, it was great to see a local representation of the Mission District hood where this event took place. A cute Piñata decorated the front hood. To keep on, keeping it real, judge and Latina Sheila Escovedo said she would give a higher score if at least one of the team members was Mexican. One immediately took off his mask, and proudly showed off his ethnic pride to the cheers of the crowd and Sheila. She hiked up her score without a doubt. Gotta represent!
3. Star Wars Death Star: These guys were the only ones who made a video presentation (about 4 minutes) of their work in progress. Impressive, funny, and simple. The death star didn’t look very stable as it rolled down. After it jumped the hill, It’s upper half dome cracked to look like, what the announcer called, Packman, which it did!
2. Voted winner of People Choice of Awards was Rubik’s Cube. Their leader really played (or maybe he was) up the geek patrol persona. They even opened their skit with that nerdy song by Oingo Boingo. I believe it’s called Weird Science. One of the colored windows was torn after the jump but it still made for an entertaining show.
1. Drum roll please. Winner on my list was the SF Giants Baseball made by a group of baseball jocks from San Luis Obispo. Their skit was not so great but the cart design was very realistic from the red cross stitching to the leather type material. The red smoke that continually spewed out the back like a polluting haystack was a crowd pleaser. Very cool. They went pretty fast I believe in the late 20s-low 30’s mph range.
If you missed you out, you can watch the entire event this Saturday on local TV station KOFY-20. I believe it’ll air 1:00pm but double check your local listings. San Francisco was Red Bull’s first and only West Coast stop. I’m sure the city made a huge impression!
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