Vallarta Blog

The F1 Roadshow was presented in front of over 200 thousand spectators, organized by Giancarlo Fisichella and Nelson Piquet Jr. After 15 years without F1, they rolled once again on the streets of the capital city of Mexico. The event was performed this weekend 13th and 14th of October on the Reforma Street.

In only 12 minutes the Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and the Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr drove the F1 vehicles in front of more than 200 thousand spectators.

The scene was packed with people and most of them could only get a peak of what was going on. Improvising with chairs, boxes, bikes and trees, some lucky ones were able to oversee the crowds and enjoy the event.

Piquet Jr drove the first car at 1:50pm with a deafening sound coming from the machine that cruised around the Reforma Avenue of 2km length, inbetween the Statue of Diana the Hunter and the Palma Glorieta.

With his Renault helmet and suit, the southamerican drove around the street saluting the spectators that where waiting with patience for the event since 8:00 am

After Piquet Jr. it was Giancarlo Fisichella’s turn to drive his car on the capital’s main Avenue with hydraulic asphalt like the one used by Big Racings in F1. Just before the end of his drive, he burned some wheel in a great maneuver, leaving black prints in circles on the Reforma Street under the Angel of Independence which resulted in loud applause by the fanatics.

When the rounds were over, both drivers walked along the Avenue to thank and wave the applauds of the Mexican spectators that have been waiting for a date since F1 Gran Premio in 1992 in the Autodromo Hermano Rodriguez.

To finalize the event, the Mexican driver Mario Dominguez drove a last round in a convertible carrying the Mexican Flag.

By Robert Perea

For most visitors, a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico means days on the beach, and nights club-hopping.

Not so for the Carson High School boys and girls soccer teams. For them, it was a low stress way to prepare for the demanding Sierra League season.

Both teams went 3-0 in a tournament hosted by Colegio Americano, with the boys team winning the championship and the girls losing the final match, both on penalty kicks, after a torrential downpour forced the cancellation of the championship matches.

As the Sierra League favorites, the trip gave the Senator girls team a chance to work out some kinks against good competition in a relaxed atmosphere.

“It was more of a friendly thing for us,” said coach Randy Roser. “It helped us quite a bit. We didn’t feel pressure like we would playing league games.”

Roser said the tournament format allowed the teams to work on things that needed improvement.

“When you play in tournaments, what you see you’re weak on, you can work on in the next game,” he said.

Off the field, the teams took a three-hour cruise around the port on their second night of the trip, and the third night they attended a pool party and banquet.

“It was a great experience,” said Roser. “Most of the kids learned more Spanish than in four years of school.”

International partnership

The trip was part of a partnership

between the Carson City School District and the Colegio Americano. Next year the Colegio Americano will send a team to Carson City, while Carson will return the trip again in 2009, and they will rotate after that.

“From our perspective, our hope is if you play soccer at Carson, at least once you will play internationally in Puerto Vallarta,” said Roser.

Unfortunately, the Senator girls didn’t get much down time after returning from the trip on Sept. 13. They opened Sierra League play two days later with a 3-1 loss to South Tahoe.

Carson rebounded to beat North Tahoe, Wooster and Hug, and despite the loss to the Lakers, look ready to stand up to their role as Sierra League favorites.

The Senators have won the Sierra League in three of the last four years, and feature a deep and talented, yet still young, squad.

“We’re very strong,” Roser said. “We have 20 players and we’re 20 deep. Everyone is a pretty good player. They’re very fast, and we move the ball well.”

Returning talent

The Senators return six seniors — Kristin Rush, Becca Kane, Belle Fleming, Brandy Cantley, Amanda Osborne and Kayla Sanchez — who have been on the varsity team for three years. They’re joined by four juniors and 10 sophomores, three of whom are returning varsity players.

The goalkeeper is sophomore Jennifer Johnson, who Roser said is “getting better every match.”

The juniors returning from last season are Alli Collier, Helaine Berris, Lauren Schulz and Brandi Vega, who is getting recruiting attention from everyone on the west coast, including UCLA, Washington State and San Francisco.

Johnson is one of three returning sophomores, along with Taylor Musselman and Brenda Luquin.

“These girls are strong and they know how to win, the seniors especially,” said Roser. “We’re fast everywhere, back, midfield and front, and so far, I don’t see any team that will be able to pass on us a lot.”

With that kind of speed all over the field, Roser said the key to success for the Senators will be to play patiently, since opposing teams will likely try to neutralize that speed.

“If we can just keep our game simple, with our skills on the ball we don’t have to work hard,” Roser said. “Just let the ball do the work and do what we do. Be patient, and make better decisions.”

Although they’ve won the league title three of the last four years, Roser said that’s not the Senators’ goal.

“The goal is always to make the playoffs,” he said. “The first time around the league is a lot of training — working on the basics and on certain tactics and getting them ingrained in the players.

“The second time around is to make sure we get into zone, and to make sure the technical and tactical things are peaking,” Roser added. “Winning will take care of itself if we train properly.”

There are always constructions and repairs going on in Vallarta, especially now that Vallarta is growing amazingly fast. Since Vallarta is one of the most important tourist locations in Mexico, the government spends millions of pesos in maintaining certain cultural symbols, like the church, the Malecon, sculptures, some of its parks and most impressively its cobblestone streets which are doomed to damage every year by the rainy season.

Nevertheless Puerto Vallarta understands the importance of historical culture and the reason why it attracts millions of visitors each year. Unsure about why there isn’t a more organized and logical traffic system, you might still be surprised how everything works out well enough to get from A to B in the ever growing city of Puerto Vallarta. People have been visiting Puerto Vallarta in all kinds of vehicles, boats and airplanes which has forced Vallarta to expand its Marina Peer for private boats and immense cruise ships.

Believe it or not, but there was a time where the main Marina Peer was not able to fit more than one smaller cruise ship, where now we can be proud to see three international cruise ships each of the size of an entire hotel building.

Motorcyclists can’t miss to visit Vallarta when cruising through Mexico. We have many biker clubs and shops down here that will provide any biker with everything from imported parts, amazing graffiti art to even planning tour rides through the beautiful surroundings that would probably be missed if traveling all by yourself.

Once arrived in Puerto Vallarta, it depends on what time of the year it is, you might find yourself in a twilight situation where you can decide to stay inside of your car/bus for hours, waiting for the traffic to move ahead for 5 seconds and then stand still for 30 sec. to a minute OR you can leave your car if you find a place to park it. Then walk to your destination in the burning summer heat, defeating all kinds of dangers, like time share vendors that believe you can still hang out with them, listen to one of their funny jokes trying not to disappoint them too much by telling them that you might consider to buy something from them some other day when its less hot. If the heat gets you hard, you might start buying anything just to get into an air-conditioned office, store or restaurant.

Surprisingly now at beginnings of October, where everything is empty and there are no tourists in sight, the traffic jam has become almost as bad as in high season. The main reason is that there are several street constructions going on in some areas where the space for cars, buses, constructions and people isn’t big enough, so what happens is the known bottleneck effect.

Let’s hope that this sweaty sacrifice (until a better solution is found) will maintain the famous Vallarta cobblestone streets as they where many many years ago. The last thing we want to happen is what happened to the Parks in Vallarta, when the former municipal president destroyed the public and historical parks to turn them into private, moneymaking parking lots that now are causing the immense damage of the overfilling streets in Puerto Vallarta. The big trees were also destroyed, leaving no shadow for anybody fleeing the intense heat in the summer, which increases the city heat with every new concrete buildings, streets and plastic decorative palm trees.

Oh, and by the way if you are wondering why only one of four construction workers is actually working or why another is just checking out every girl that passes, be reminded that in Mexico and especially in Vallarta, the heat and the low salaries are a big factor why things still work different but still work in a seemingly chaotic paradise.