Girls: The Other Attraction.

The Molson Indy girls sign autographs. Starting from right to left Yanka Clementi, Denise Thomson, Zarah Pacheco and Stephanie Marson.

When a newbie thinks about the Molson Indy or any car race for that matter images of sweating under a blistering hot sun while waiting for the cars to whiz by every so often come to mind. The highlight of the race being cars crashing into one another and seeing who comes in first. Well okay maybe just the cars colliding with something.

As your official newbie race fan/reseacher the first thing I noticed upon entering the gates was the large number of attractive females that visit and/or work the event itself. Gorgeous women everywhere. It was like a machine was dropping them off via conveyer belt. Who knew? The beer company that's who.


Dawne Furey Miss Molson Indy contestant #9

First there's the girls that were part of the model search for the Molson Indy girl. Then there were the "beer" girls working the event. Some of them playing volleyball and just standing around being eye candy, some of them working to sell you drinks, food, or give out free stuff. Yes free stuff. I got handed a free razor and a bottle of "dippity do" hair gel. Aside from the official females working the event there are of course the spectators. One wonders if the cars racing around is just an excuse to gather all these women together in one place.


Ashley and Natalie work the VIP area.

So okay, aside from the oggling of women and the cars racing around the track, I managed to find other things to do. There's the pit. This is where the car technicians change tires, parts, basically tune up the racing vehicle during the race. It's incredible seeing these teams in action. The speed at which they upgrade the car and get it going again is amazing. Although the super photo pass (SPP) doesn't let you shoot while the main (champ) car race is on it does let you get in while they're doing practice runs.

If you want to see the cars being worked on at a slower pace you can check out the paddocks. The paddocks is an area that you have to pay extra to see if you have a normal ticket. As a SPP holder this is included. The paddocks is where the team trucks are located. Tents are put up next to the trucks to create assembly areas for the cars. If you're a fan of technology this is one of the best places to see the car with the engine exposed. I suppose it would be like the outdoor version of being in a garage. The technician will use various devices to take readings on the car and adjust things accordingly. You can get some good shots of fiddling. Bring a long lens as the car areas have partitions keeping people from getting too close.

Then there's the convention center with vendors selling everything from food and beer to car polish, T-shirts and toy cars, and don't forget those ever popular orange chamois. The same chamois that they seem to sell at every other convention. If you're not in the mood to buying anything you can sit back and watch whatever is going on stage while eating an over priced sandwich.

With tickets from the indy you could check out the Grand Tuner show, a show that ran concurrently with the rest of the Indy. In this show you could see cars that have been "pimped out", modified for all us old people. Everything from putting flouresent lights under the car, adjusting the wheels for the low rider effect, to adding video screens next to your licence plate. I wondered about the purpose of this. Maybe the video screen would confuse the officer taking down your licence plate number while speeding? Whatever happened to just having a really good paint job?

There are actually contests dedicated to seeing who has the loudest speaker system. "Would you like a car with your speaker system?" comes to mind. The whole back trunk fits the woofer and nothing else. I suppose it's good to have a hobby. It's not as geeky as pimping out your computer. By the way, you can get flouresent strips for inside your computer that pulse to your audio output. Somehow I can't see that really impressing the chicks. With a car at least you can drive her home.

When done looking at the cars and their steroid speaker systems you could then go to the other side of the room and check out the imported models. Two girls from the sunny land of California, Jeri Lee and Melanie Tillbrook. An obvious attempt at using sex or at least the allure of the opposite sex to guarantee a certain attendance and demographic. If the two girls weren't enough pull, the Grand Tuner show also had their version of the Miss Molson Indy, the Grand Tuner Bikini competition.


Asia, one of the contestants of the Miss Grand Tuner contest.

Like a moth to bright light people would hover around the stage waiting to see what was to be seen. I noticed that the group was composed of 20% females. I would guess that they had friends competing, were dragged to watch the contest by their boyfriends, or were there to try to grab the free stuff being thrown into the crowds by the people on stage unknowing of what was to come.

The girls filed out one at a time. Sunny, the winner of the CHIN contest was there as well as some other familiar faces. As the guys in the crowd became more rowdy I noticed the female population of the crowd scurry out of the front lines. Probably to get some air and avoid being trampled. Half naked girls with free stuff being thrown at you is a good recipe for a destroyed camera if one is not careful. With zealots jumping all around me trying to grab free stuff or get the girl on stage's attention I decided it was statisically safer to shoot fast moving cars from behind a concrete block and fence.