Long Beach Grand Prix Not A Party For Everyone

While Friends Party The Bar Blogger Was Working The Best Job at the Grand Prix

I used to get a kick every year at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach when on Saturday, I started getting texts from my friends asking “Where Are U?”

The party bus had arrived, and they were partying. They knew I was there and want edme to join them at the bars.  And I appreciated it.

But at the Grand Prix in those days, I was not there to party. I was there to work, for this is a time when I trade in my bar blogging and PubClub.com-ing, for a PR hat.

As such, I had to save my drinking for the evenings. In the daytime, while they were at the Mai Tai Bar (not closed, dang it!), Alud Dubliner, or walking around with a drink from one of the many beer stands, I’m somewhere on or around the track.

I might have been taking around a reporter or camera person from a TV station or in the press room talking to journalists. In the pits with team PR people.

More than likely, I was walking around with the Miss Grand Prix girls, helping take them to the grid and Victory Circle for the Celebrity Race (Saturday) and IndyCar race (Sunday), to the IndyCar autograph session, to interviews and other places. Yes, it’s the best job at the Grand Prix (well it was, when I had it!) but we’re on the go and there’s no beer or bar visits involved in it.

So when I did finally catch up with them, which was usually not until about 8 at night, I’m a bit tired from being on the feet all day, and was looking to sit down and have a few beers with dinner.

They, on the other hand, have been drinking all day and are more fueled up than the race cars. They would grab me, hug me as if they have not seen me in six months (when in fact, it was likely the previous weekend in Hermosa Beach), and stick a shot glass in my hand.

I was the sober person walking into the drunk tank!

It was always fun and always funny. You would think that after several years, people would catch onto the fact that I was working, always liked the texts asking “Where Are U?”

It’s always nice to be invited to join a big party!