For those of you that haven’t been reading my Cars N’ Games series, I have been talking about my visit to the Quakecon convention in Dallas, Texas.  So far we’ve covered the cars of Quakecon, a Blue Corvette, and a nice one-sided discussion on the world of racing games, but in all, I must say that the best part of Quakecon has to be the geeks people. 

Pure Chaos...

I say this for a number of reasons, but most notably I am speaking of two particular reasons.  First off, there’s the sheer hilarity of the crowd.  Every year, people show up in pimp hats, dyed hair, video game costumes, Transformer costumes (made from beer cases), banana hammocks, and a whole myriad of very interesting looks.  And if that’s not strange enough for you, then as you can see in the picture above, women are actually showing up to Quakecon more and more each year.

Strange, I know.

Speaking of that picture, there’s actually a hilarious back-story.  Next to the convention center, there’s a large grass clearing used for croquet, but that night, it was to be used for something completely different.  There was a sponsor of the event gathering a crowd out on this field, and boy did he have something incredible in store for them.  He informed everyone that he intended on having a competition for a chance to win the Blue Corvette, as well as some other prizes, but this competition was unlike anything they had seen before.

The rules were simple: You take off your shoes and place them in a pile in the middle of the field.  Then, everyone stands in a large circle around the pile, given that they can stand no closer to the pile than 20 yards.  When the sponsor (the guy running the competition) threw the last shoe into the pile, everyone was to run to the pile and put on their shoes.  Finally, the first to touch the sponsor with his shoes on would win.

Sure enough, as expected, when the sponsor threw the last shoe into the pile, all hell broke loose.  It was the kind of pandamonioum and chaos that one would expect in a feeding frenzy from a pack of ravenous wild dogs.  People were throwing shoes in the air, at each other, and at passing members of the press, whom were taking photos and had nothing to do with that whole fiasco - assholes.

Anyway, it seemed that nobody expected the best part of this whole quagmire.  By the time people had managed to get their shoes on, it quickly became apparent that the sponsor of the event had actually ran off immeiately after throwing the shoe.  He was nowhere to be found for the remainder of the evening, by my accord.

The second best part of the Quakecon crowd lies within the great diversity of people at Quakecon.  Such a diverse crowd gives a great variance of stories, and when you’re an enterprising young writer for an up-and-coming auto website, people tend to share some very interesting and privvy information.  One such person in particular, who happens to be a very reliable resource, disclosed to me that F1 is scheduled to make an appearance at Indy Motor Speedway in the next couple years.  That’s right folks, the US Grand Prix will finally be back, and all three of America’s F1 fans can rest assured - you will see this soon:

Seriously, who outside of Indiana watches open wheel?