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| - It was a great time on the river on the 4th weekend and a great value, only $25 for 3 days. If you get there early enough you can park within a couple blocks of your entrance and walk in. You can bring your own food and drinks in (no glass is allowed but that wasn'tenforced) and you can sit almost right on the river if you want, away from the main pit area and toward the bridge (one security guy on Saturday wanted us to move behind the thin black rope 50 feet from the shore for "insurance" reasons), but on Sunday about 100 people were standing past the rope where we were cheering on Oh Boy Oberto, the home town unlimited hydroplane. You could see almost the whole course from there. People were shooting off firecrackers on both sides of the river. It was very hot, but that's Regatta weather. There's a midway on the street lined with vendors, food (some overpriced, $8 for rib tips but some reasonable, $2 for slices of Papa Johns Pizza and $1 for bottled water) and souvernirs ($13 for a very nice Oh Boy hat and $15 for an Oh Boy t-shirt; those items at the Indy 500 would be over $20 each). Hydroplane drivers were very accessible and friendly, most would converse with you during autograph session and you could literally run into the biggest names of the sport when they''re going into their RVs parked along the street (stars in many other sports won't give you the time of day or won't go out without bodyguards or posse or whatever). There was also a very good air show during the down times. The only downers were the two accidents during the races, one when a hydro hit a safety boat and 3 people were hurt and the other in the final race. The other heats were cancelled after the first accident and they went to the final after a delay, because the Coast Guard wanted the river opened to barges at 6 pm. It's a 2-hour drive from Indy, the latter half along winding, hilly 2-lane roads, but well worth it. You Gotta Regatta
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