Enough to drive one up the tree
By
Sheryl-Lee Kerr
ONE of the most mysterious things about having a motorcar race just
about going through your backyard is the awe it inspires from your friends
who don’t have a motorcar race going through their backyards.
“Oh, that is so exciting,” they say to me enthusiastically.
“You’d be able to walk there and not have to worry about parking.”
True. My only worry is how to manoeuvre my car out from between the
vehicles parked on my mail box, leaning against the Stobie pole and halfway up the tree.
Not that parking is at a premium, it’s just legal parking may be a little scant.
During one Formula 1 Grand Prix, a friend begged me to do a house
Swap - not so she could see the race mind you, but I think it was so she could watch all the “suckers” who had to actually drive there and find a park.
Under her deal, I’d get the experience of living in a house which,
while not being critical, does tend to be a renovator’s delight - to the
extent that I’m not sure the Tower of Pisa’s lean was that pronounced.
And while I, a cat person, obviously did desperately want the joy of minding her two darling dobermans - Trixie and Pixie, which needed to be administered anti-stress pills daily (hence the reason they couldn’t move with her to grand prix land) - I had to draw the line at being given plant-watering duties.
I tend to kill anything sappy and vegetative. Which is why I also
feared for Trixie and Pixie’s safety.
In short, I didn’t think I was quite ready for the responsibilities
required in this house-swap deal.
Now, I should point out that I do like seeing the V8s do their
thing. I will often watch the purring beasts stalk up and down Rundle St,
filling the night air with rumbling growls and I will not say anything
unkind at all, like: “Yo man, my white-haired grandma gets more revs out of her Volvo”. (Which incidentally, is true, mainly because Grandma has such bad hearing that she tends to drive at 80km/h in first gear and think she’s in fourth.)
Still, it’d be rude to point this out.
I also like the idea of a world-famous car racing event for South
Australia. I love it when SA thinks it’s getting famous. For starters it
brings out the patriotism in the politicians, and that’s always a funny,
funny thing. SA Premier John Olsen announcing, with the barely reigned-in excitement of a cancer cure, that we’d secured the V8 race, made me want to play Peter Allen hits to see which teary-eyed politician or race organiser would buckle first and initiate the group hug.
I do think anything good for Adelaide can’t be bad. I am just
relieved it takes place this year while I’m away, sparing me visions of
vehicles using my wheelie bin as a speed hump while attempting to reverse park up my fig tree.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 4 APR 2000.