if we add 'encounters' Mika Hakkinen drove over my left toes at Spa, accompanied by a slimmer hey-day Norbert Haug in a Merc on tour to the pit garages. He stopped and asked directions to a fan LOL and turned too sharply, too soon. Had my dad not pulled me back I would probably have come off worse.
Other encounters, and this is weird to get across and in context, but I shared a plane trip and lift ride at miami airport with a 911 terrorist and mohammed atta.
in short, my mum sat next to the sidekick guy for 10 hours and chatted away about flying lessons and sand sculptures. When he reached the airport, we thought nothing of it.
then one week later, 911 happened, and days after, a front page of 8 bombers filled the newspapers. both my mum and i freaked as we noticed the same shaved headed glass wearing man who sat next to her, and weirder yet, when we got out the airport, this guy was greeted by a more arabic looking guy. they were quite rude, and pushed in front of us to use a lift, despite my family having a wheelchair, they barged us. i remember muttering something obvious like 'lazy @#$%&', to the intention of them hearing.
we ended up sharing with them, and they were very shifty and quiet. the shaved guy smiled and said bye to my mum, and that was it.
rest is history i guess!
and when two of their mugshots appeared on the cover, was kinda a bit surreal. better yet, mum had some video footage of my bro inside the plane pre-take-off, and it just so happened to capture a snippet of the shaved headed guy talking in non-english to a random african next to him. this confirmed our initial WTF, and then mum recalled all the weird things during the plane trip , things like him liking my bros mock flying jacket, how he had been taking lessons, how he lived in boccoratton miami but never saw sand sculptures etc. Things didnt add up, oh and he shook the african mans hand at the end of the trip and said something non-english, and smiled.
Weird how you remember things after they happen and you see things beyond what was otherwise face value plain and boring.
Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it