Honda F1 Open Day
The following day was the Honda F1 open day. Bruce drove up from London to see it, and I thought it would be fun to 'see how the other half live'.
The Honda Factory tour was fantastic, but ultimately they sold WAY too many tickets and they didn't have the necessary infrastructure in place to cope with the croweds.
We left Banbury at 9:45 am, and arrived at the airfield Park'n'Ride at about 10:15 am, to be confronted with a queue of about 300 people lining up for some non-existant buses. We decided that we weren't going to put up with that, so we turned around and drove into Brackley (passing about four buses on the way, which were struggling to negotiate the C-roads and country lanes).
We parked our car a 5-minute walk from the factory, and began queuing for the Factory tour at 11:00 am, finally making it into the factory at 11:30 am. The tour itself was great, some interesting exhibitions and very friendly staff.
By the time we left the factory just after 12, the queue had tripled in size, we guessed it would have been about a 90 minute wait at that point. The queues for food and coffee etc. were also horrendous. The queue for the wind tunnel model shop was about 45 minutes long, and for that you got to see about about four small presentations of the 1/2 scale model (the total display was about 20 meters long) so we decided to just head home instead.
Contrast this to the Prodrive Day, where the longest I had to queue all day was 3 minutes for Chris Atkinson's autograph (who was very friendly BTW). The Prodrive displays were quite crowded (relatively) but as I am 6'3" I didn't mind standing at the back to see the Le Mans and WRC pit-stops. The Subaru exhibits were great (especially the 'how to build a WRC' one).
At the end of the day, Honda sold way too many tickets and the overcrowding spoiled the day IMO. However, hats off once again to the factory staff.
The Honda Factory tour was fantastic, but ultimately they sold WAY too many tickets and they didn't have the necessary infrastructure in place to cope with the croweds.
We left Banbury at 9:45 am, and arrived at the airfield Park'n'Ride at about 10:15 am, to be confronted with a queue of about 300 people lining up for some non-existant buses. We decided that we weren't going to put up with that, so we turned around and drove into Brackley (passing about four buses on the way, which were struggling to negotiate the C-roads and country lanes).
We parked our car a 5-minute walk from the factory, and began queuing for the Factory tour at 11:00 am, finally making it into the factory at 11:30 am. The tour itself was great, some interesting exhibitions and very friendly staff.
By the time we left the factory just after 12, the queue had tripled in size, we guessed it would have been about a 90 minute wait at that point. The queues for food and coffee etc. were also horrendous. The queue for the wind tunnel model shop was about 45 minutes long, and for that you got to see about about four small presentations of the 1/2 scale model (the total display was about 20 meters long) so we decided to just head home instead.
Contrast this to the Prodrive Day, where the longest I had to queue all day was 3 minutes for Chris Atkinson's autograph (who was very friendly BTW). The Prodrive displays were quite crowded (relatively) but as I am 6'3" I didn't mind standing at the back to see the Le Mans and WRC pit-stops. The Subaru exhibits were great (especially the 'how to build a WRC' one).
At the end of the day, Honda sold way too many tickets and the overcrowding spoiled the day IMO. However, hats off once again to the factory staff.
posted by PG at 12:50 PM
1 Comments:
Hi PG
Thanks for the short report on the Honda Open Day. At least you only need to drive and stand in a crowded line, I would have had to get in a rocket ship to come over.
Always fascinating to be in these centres of technology. Look forward to other reports. Cheers Kevin A www.simdeck.com
Post a Comment
<< Home