Very sad I did not get tickets, what with being in Austin and all. They sold out way faster than I expected them to, at least of the (relatively) cheap tickets. Oh well. I really hope this goes well though. It will be huge, huge, for Austin if this event weekend goes smoothly.
I wonder what will happen when they inevitably schedule the race the same weekend as a Longhorns home game. It might still go pretty well, since Austin is a pretty large city and not your typical tiny college town, but it could end up with some truly excessive Saturday traffic.
I wonder what will happen when they inevitably schedule the race the same weekend as a Longhorns home game. It might still go pretty well, since Austin is a pretty large city and not your typical tiny college town, but it could end up with some truly excessive Saturday traffic.
We've had ACL on the same days as Longhorn home games before and it turned out ok. So it's probably do-able, but certainly not ideal. I'd be more worried about hotel space than anything.
Can't afford the time to do all three days, but I'll be going on Sunday. I'm kinda psyched after Abu Dhabi, which was the best race I've seen in my brief time of watching the sport.
PSN: Kurahoshi1
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
The crowd looks amazing right now for qualifying, that's really a good sign. I am excited to see people coming out to see F1 on American soil.
I'm kind of assuming that I'll need to leave for the bus at the expo center by 9.
You know, it's not been terrible. We took 183 straight down From the arboretum to the aurport without any issues around 10:30 this morning. With parking, shuttle, and walking to our seats at turn 11, it took us maybe 75 minutes. I'm sure tomorrow will be worse.
Where are you parking?
We paid 30 bucks for a 3-day pass at the airport. The shuttles from there weren't bad. The lines from the expo center looked brutal.
Well I was looking forward to being able to watch a race live without having to stay up past midnight, but the race is apparently blacked out or something as speed channel is off-air and showing nothing but a black screen. I guess it must be offered on ppv or something. Guess I'll have to wait for a replay later tonight or tomorrow.
Well I was looking forward to being able to watch a race live without having to stay up past midnight, but the race is apparently blacked out or something as speed channel is off-air and showing nothing but a black screen. I guess it must be offered on ppv or something. Guess I'll have to wait for a replay later tonight or tomorrow.
Well I was looking forward to being able to watch a race live without having to stay up past midnight, but the race is apparently blacked out or something as speed channel is off-air and showing nothing but a black screen. I guess it must be offered on ppv or something. Guess I'll have to wait for a replay later tonight or tomorrow.
Seriously? Where do you live? That sucks
Canada, I have no idea why it seems to be blacked out, I got the live practice and qualifying just fine, but today when I went to watch the race SPEED is just a black screen and says off-air. It's really lame. I think it might be on CTVHD, but I don't have an HD tuner box for my cable.
WOOOOOOO. Grand Prix racing is back in America! I am so excited.
The track looks awesome, and in the early laps is producing some great passes.
For those of you that are there, what's it like to hear the sound of Formula 1 engines in America again?
Loud.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited November 2012
That was a great race. The people who paid for the seats at the end of the DRS straight got their monies worth.
(I talk about the winner here, so don't open this if you DVR'ed)
Very nice pass by Hamilton for the lead. That was a great Grand Prix, and that track is really quite nice. That first corner is insanity, going uphill, unable to see the apex.
I called my best friend who lives in Houston, and I'm springing for tickets to go next year. I'll fly to Houston and we'll just drive up to Austin to see qualifying Saturday, stay one night, and then drive back to Houston.
Drag Reduction System opens a gap in the rear wing basically. This reduces the drag caused by the rear wing and gives the car a much higher top speed.
IIRC it was introduced to help drivers pass cars that they were clearly faster than but couldn't overtake due to the nature of the track/etc.
You have to be within 1 second of the car in front of you(including lapped traffic), but it does give a pretty sizable advantage. It can also only be activated in one or two places on the track. Typically the longest straight. In reality, clearly faster is a bit of a stretch, it creates passing among cars of about the same performance in some cases. It makes the on track racing a bit more interesting, which is kinda needed.
I had kind of a spastic viewing experience, always torn between watching the race(near turn 15), or the screen for a good replay. That was a great turn to be near, however I think I was just a bit out of range of seeing the passing at the end of the DRS straight-away.
It was a great race but it's hard to make an assessment about the experience of being in person, with so much information lost as opposed to watching it on tv.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised that leaving right after the race "only" took 2 hours compared to just a bit under that time to get there in the morning.
I was prepared to hate the race, it being yet another Tilke track, starting at 2am, yet I loved it. I was extremely surprised at the lack of crashes in the hairpin turns, they just looked too inviting for Grosjean not to have an ill-considered go at someone.
I had an absolute blast at the race! My dad and I (and some of his buddies) got seat licenses so we were there for all 3 days. We're at turn 15, and can see 12 through 16. Lots of great racing happened right in front of us. We're in a great spot with the amphitheater right behind our seats so it's easy to go to the concerts right after the races to wait out the worst of the traffic (even if it means sitting through Clay Walker). A big merch area is right there, as are a number of food trailers and bar tents.
The undercard races were a lot of fun, too. The Porsche GT3 race was pretty wild, and the Ferraris sounded awesome.
All in all, I was pretty darn impressed by the facilities, relieved that traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, and thrilled by the racing all weekend. MotoGP in April should be a kick!
How the hell can next season get any better than this... five words:
Kimi Raikkonen - 2013 World Champion!
Seriously though, good job by Vettel, tough luck for Alonso. Would have much rather seen the Spaniard win, but thems the breaks. Really can't wait for next season, especially Hamilton at Mercedes and Perez moving to a more competitive car. Where Kobayashi ends up could be interesting as well...
So as a completely bizarre and unexpected birthday present, my wife surprised me with a "racing experience" thing at Richmond International Raceway where I got to drive a stock car for twelve laps. I was initially unenthused because racing isn't really a sport I'll follow if it doesn't involve a thoroughbred.
Holy shit do I have to change my perspective. A couple of disorganized impressions:
1. I knew the headlights were fake. I did not realize the brake lights were fake. Mad respect to anyone who at 100 mph can tailgate a car with non-functioning breaklights for 10 miles without killing himself.
2. It's also really hard to drive without sideview mirrors. This is particularly true when your strapped into a chair-shaped neck-brace with a five point harness because you can't turn your head to check your blindspots.
3. I need more practice driving a manual transmission.
4. The wall on turn 2 at RIR comes up on you a lot faster than you're expecting. I nearly smashed into it on my second lap.
5. To top off the authentic racing experience, another car DID get destroyed coming out of turn 2 on lap 8. 30 feet in front of me. Because I couldn't see anything that wasn't happening directly in front of me, I didn't even realize he was there until I saw him careen from the outside wall across my line of motion. My first clue that he was in trouble was that he was traveling backwards. The look on his face was...remarkable. The car impacted on its side with the side wall and then spun up the incline to smash into the outside wall. It looked like it was disintegrating.
6. Because these aren't registered automotive vehicles, your car insurance won't cover it. The operator's deductible on the business insurance for the car is $50,000 unless you buy into a separate plan when you sign up, so have fun taking an extra year to pay off your house, Car 10.
7. Jesus Christ why did my wife sign me up for something that involves a $50,000 deductible?!
8. I walked into this thinking that race car driving wasn't any more complicated than "turn left. turn left. turn left. turn left." I was totally wrong. The lack of situational awareness about anything happening outside your peripheral vision, the lack of lights, and the lack of any instrumentation beyond, like, the oil temp gauge and tachometer makes this one of the most challenging things I've ever tried.
9. I would totally do it again. I would definitely buy into an upgraded insurance plan before doing so.
10. Oh, the driver in Car 10 walked away from his accident. Sitting inside one of those cars is like being in a shark cage with a steering wheel.
So according to the Grand Am website, the Rolex series is coming to the Circuit of the Americas at the end of February 2013. But there's not a peep about it on the CotA website and PSL holders haven't been informed (at least my dad and I haven't seen anything official yet). The Rolex series is one I'm really looking forward to seeing in person; at least some of the classes are based on real cars, and I really want to cheer for VW/Audi/Porsche, which I can't do with F1.
Anyone have any experience attending a Rolex event?
Anyone have any experience attending a Rolex event?
I live in Daytona, so yeah. Lot's of fun. I've got no idea about how long the one at CotA will be, but with the 24 hour race it is absolutely worth getting infield tickets and an infield parking pass. I've only paid for them a couple times(I know people in grand-am and on KONI Challenge, or whatever the hell is is this year, teams), but generally they aren't too expensive, and if you've got a bunch of people you can bring all the food and drinks you want. Pit passes are nice, but pricey and you need long pants and close toes shoes to use them. I forgot that one year manged to get some, and had to hike like 4 miles back to my car to get them.
It's a lot easier to follow the race on Speed. So you get this odd experience of watching the race on large LCD running off some random person's camper, out of one eye and the one or two corner's you can actually see out of the other.
The people are generally fairly awesome, and there tends to be a lot of sports cars to stare at and folks like Grass Roots Motorsports with tents and stuff set up. NASCAR fans drive campers, pickups and camaros. The folks that show up for a grand-am race tend to drive Porches, M-series and exotics. I tend to spend as much time watching the race as I do drooling over cars I wouldn't spend money on, even if I had it.
Race cars are loud, and race tracks are way bigger than you would expect.
redx on
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
@SammyF: That's awesome. I've been driving most of my life on tracks (since I was 14), and yes, it's totally different than most people think it is. Even in a fully instrumented sports car, with a normal seat, and a very basic five point, your peripheral vision is still hurt by the helmet, even with side mirrors. Also, the Hans Device further restricts your ability to move your head side to side.
Most people don't realize just how grueling driving a car on it's razor edge can be. You're in a fire suit, it's 115 degrees in the car, you're fighting the car constantly to keep it from snapping and losing the back end (and even with power steering, this is back breaking work over a long haul), you require amazing ankle articulation, flexibility and strength to properly control the brakes and throttle. Though all of this, you need to "feel" the car through your butt and in to your back, so you can tell when it's over or under steering, and how to correct it. Plus you put quite a few G's on going through most corners at high speed.
If you really want to kick it up a notch, go do some road course driving Ovals are challenging and fun in their own right, but to me, nothing beats a road course. It just requires more technique and ability to really throw a car around.
Anyone have any experience attending a Rolex event?
I live in Daytona, so yeah. Lot's of fun. I've got no idea about how long the one at CotA will be, but with the 24 hour race it is absolutely worth getting infield tickets and an infield parking pass. I've only paid for them a couple times(I know people in grand-am and on KONI Challenge, or whatever the hell is is this year, teams), but generally they aren't too expensive, and if you've got a bunch of people you can bring all the food and drinks you want. Pit passes are nice, but pricey and you need long pants and close toes shoes to use them. I forgot that one year manged to get some, and had to hike like 4 miles back to my car to get them.
It's a lot easier to follow the race on Speed. So you get this odd experience of watching the race on large LCD running off some random person's camper, out of one eye and the one or two corner's you can actually see out of the other.
The people are generally fairly awesome, and there tends to be a lot of sports cars to stare at and folks like Grass Roots Motorsports with tents and stuff set up. NASCAR fans drive campers, pickups and camaros. The folks that show up for a grand-am race tend to drive Porches, M-series and exotics. I tend to spend as much time watching the race as I do drooling over cars I wouldn't spend money on, even if I had it.
Race cars are loud, and race tracks are way bigger than you would expect.
Sounds fun! And I got word from our guy at the track, and the Rolex race is probably going to be moved to the end of the season. Nothing is actually confirmed for february. It's pretty much locked that the next big race at CotA is MotoGP in May.
After the days of testing we finally got to see who is genuinely fast and who isn't. It's pretty clear that Red Bull were sandbagging, but it's not as if anyone expected them to be anything but better than last year. Regardless, you'll never find me rooting for Vettel or the team, but I do have a soft spot for Webber. I am very impressed by Mercedes' pace, and while their race pace is not as good as their qualifying pace they're off to a great start (Rosberg's mechanical failure aside). Here's hoping they don't peter out like they did last year after the first few races. It's a shame Williams seems to have another awful car compared to last years, but honestly as long as Maldolnado is unhappy I'm happy (I'm curious to see how Bottas does in his rookie year though). Not much to say about Sauber since they received essentially no coverage during the race. I and everyone else was hugely impressed by Sutil's performance, especially after a year away, and if they're able to keep that same pace this should be a very good year for them. Mclaren had a terrible start to the year and there's been some talk about them reverting to last years chassis, but due to parts shortages and retooling that might be as hard and making the 2013 car competitive. Lotus look to have another great car this year, and after the result they had I'm expecting great things (and a less cautious Grosjean who seemed to really be taking it easy).
I also caught a bit of the 12 hours of Sebring but couldn't get Speed2 to accept my DirecTV log in so I missed watching the end of the race. I would have loved to have seen the #4 Corvette catching and passing the Risi Ferrari, but I'm happy that my favorite car and drivers won. It's a shame the Audi's won't be back next year, but they really are in a class of their own. They are just so much faster than the petrol P1 cars that it seems unfair to classify them together.
The third annual Grand Prix of Baltimore is this weekend, and since I live in Baltimore I figured I would go because, hey, I didn't go to the other two and who knows how long they'll be doing this for, am I right? Saturday is the ALMS race and Sunday is the IndyCar race, so I went Saturday (today) because I prefer sports car racing.
So I pay eighty bucks for two tickets that don't even include seats, and then this happens on the first lap:
The commentators in the video don't live in Baltimore, so let me explain what happened: the race organizers put a chicane on the front straight because that's where the light rail track intersects Pratt St. One of the LMPs lost traction over the train tracks, rear ended another one, who spun and then most of the field dodged him except for like six cars.
So then they spend an hour towing the broken cars off the track and restart the race (for a one-hour ALMS sprint, because the track needs to be clear at 6:15 PM). There were two other moderately large collisions but what really stuck out for me was the #15 BMW driving around for two laps with its rear bumper dangling off the back of the car before it finally fell off in the middle of the track causing a full-course caution. Like, why not go and pit after the first lap with the bumper dangling off?
Overall, it was a fun race but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if they stopped doing it after this fiasco. The course is just too narrow for the number of cars they're trying to cram on there, and even the non-train-track parts of the road course have bumpy and craptastic tarmac. I wonder if there will be any similar fuckup during the IndyCar race tomorrow.
Thanks for posting that! I came into the race late, and heard the commentators & twitter talking about the wreck, but haven't been able to find anything about it. I'm looking forward to the ALMS race here in Austin in a few weeks!
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Huzzah a race I won't have to stay up to 3am to watch.
We've had ACL on the same days as Longhorn home games before and it turned out ok. So it's probably do-able, but certainly not ideal. I'd be more worried about hotel space than anything.
The track was nice (I've heard rumblings that the track is a bit slick).
The area it's in is just...there's nothing there. I'm hopeful by this time next year they can build up the area around it.
Looking forward to seeing prelims tomorrow.
Qualifying just ended. It's PACKED out here. Definitely a good sign.
I'm kind of assuming that I'll need to leave for the bus at the expo center by 9.
You know, it's not been terrible. We took 183 straight down From the arboretum to the aurport without any issues around 10:30 this morning. With parking, shuttle, and walking to our seats at turn 11, it took us maybe 75 minutes. I'm sure tomorrow will be worse.
Where are you parking?
We paid 30 bucks for a 3-day pass at the airport. The shuttles from there weren't bad. The lines from the expo center looked brutal.
The airport spots have been sold out, and so I'd been debating about downtown vs expo center, but downtown seemed like it'd have to be the worst.
The track looks awesome, and in the early laps is producing some great passes.
For those of you that are there, what's it like to hear the sound of Formula 1 engines in America again?
Seriously? Where do you live? That sucks
Canada, I have no idea why it seems to be blacked out, I got the live practice and qualifying just fine, but today when I went to watch the race SPEED is just a black screen and says off-air. It's really lame. I think it might be on CTVHD, but I don't have an HD tuner box for my cable.
Loud.
(I talk about the winner here, so don't open this if you DVR'ed)
I called my best friend who lives in Houston, and I'm springing for tickets to go next year. I'll fly to Houston and we'll just drive up to Austin to see qualifying Saturday, stay one night, and then drive back to Houston.
Can someone explain DRS?
IIRC it was introduced to help drivers pass cars that they were clearly faster than but couldn't overtake due to the nature of the track/etc.
You have to be within 1 second of the car in front of you(including lapped traffic), but it does give a pretty sizable advantage. It can also only be activated in one or two places on the track. Typically the longest straight. In reality, clearly faster is a bit of a stretch, it creates passing among cars of about the same performance in some cases. It makes the on track racing a bit more interesting, which is kinda needed.
It was a great race but it's hard to make an assessment about the experience of being in person, with so much information lost as opposed to watching it on tv.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised that leaving right after the race "only" took 2 hours compared to just a bit under that time to get there in the morning.
The undercard races were a lot of fun, too. The Porsche GT3 race was pretty wild, and the Ferraris sounded awesome.
All in all, I was pretty darn impressed by the facilities, relieved that traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, and thrilled by the racing all weekend. MotoGP in April should be a kick!
Kimi Raikkonen - 2013 World Champion!
Holy shit do I have to change my perspective. A couple of disorganized impressions:
1. I knew the headlights were fake. I did not realize the brake lights were fake. Mad respect to anyone who at 100 mph can tailgate a car with non-functioning breaklights for 10 miles without killing himself.
2. It's also really hard to drive without sideview mirrors. This is particularly true when your strapped into a chair-shaped neck-brace with a five point harness because you can't turn your head to check your blindspots.
3. I need more practice driving a manual transmission.
4. The wall on turn 2 at RIR comes up on you a lot faster than you're expecting. I nearly smashed into it on my second lap.
5. To top off the authentic racing experience, another car DID get destroyed coming out of turn 2 on lap 8. 30 feet in front of me. Because I couldn't see anything that wasn't happening directly in front of me, I didn't even realize he was there until I saw him careen from the outside wall across my line of motion. My first clue that he was in trouble was that he was traveling backwards. The look on his face was...remarkable. The car impacted on its side with the side wall and then spun up the incline to smash into the outside wall. It looked like it was disintegrating.
6. Because these aren't registered automotive vehicles, your car insurance won't cover it. The operator's deductible on the business insurance for the car is $50,000 unless you buy into a separate plan when you sign up, so have fun taking an extra year to pay off your house, Car 10.
7. Jesus Christ why did my wife sign me up for something that involves a $50,000 deductible?!
8. I walked into this thinking that race car driving wasn't any more complicated than "turn left. turn left. turn left. turn left." I was totally wrong. The lack of situational awareness about anything happening outside your peripheral vision, the lack of lights, and the lack of any instrumentation beyond, like, the oil temp gauge and tachometer makes this one of the most challenging things I've ever tried.
9. I would totally do it again. I would definitely buy into an upgraded insurance plan before doing so.
10. Oh, the driver in Car 10 walked away from his accident. Sitting inside one of those cars is like being in a shark cage with a steering wheel.
Anyone have any experience attending a Rolex event?
I live in Daytona, so yeah. Lot's of fun. I've got no idea about how long the one at CotA will be, but with the 24 hour race it is absolutely worth getting infield tickets and an infield parking pass. I've only paid for them a couple times(I know people in grand-am and on KONI Challenge, or whatever the hell is is this year, teams), but generally they aren't too expensive, and if you've got a bunch of people you can bring all the food and drinks you want. Pit passes are nice, but pricey and you need long pants and close toes shoes to use them. I forgot that one year manged to get some, and had to hike like 4 miles back to my car to get them.
It's a lot easier to follow the race on Speed. So you get this odd experience of watching the race on large LCD running off some random person's camper, out of one eye and the one or two corner's you can actually see out of the other.
The people are generally fairly awesome, and there tends to be a lot of sports cars to stare at and folks like Grass Roots Motorsports with tents and stuff set up. NASCAR fans drive campers, pickups and camaros. The folks that show up for a grand-am race tend to drive Porches, M-series and exotics. I tend to spend as much time watching the race as I do drooling over cars I wouldn't spend money on, even if I had it.
Race cars are loud, and race tracks are way bigger than you would expect.
Most people don't realize just how grueling driving a car on it's razor edge can be. You're in a fire suit, it's 115 degrees in the car, you're fighting the car constantly to keep it from snapping and losing the back end (and even with power steering, this is back breaking work over a long haul), you require amazing ankle articulation, flexibility and strength to properly control the brakes and throttle. Though all of this, you need to "feel" the car through your butt and in to your back, so you can tell when it's over or under steering, and how to correct it. Plus you put quite a few G's on going through most corners at high speed.
If you really want to kick it up a notch, go do some road course driving
And nevermind! Rolex is on for Feb. 28!
After the days of testing we finally got to see who is genuinely fast and who isn't. It's pretty clear that Red Bull were sandbagging, but it's not as if anyone expected them to be anything but better than last year. Regardless, you'll never find me rooting for Vettel or the team, but I do have a soft spot for Webber. I am very impressed by Mercedes' pace, and while their race pace is not as good as their qualifying pace they're off to a great start (Rosberg's mechanical failure aside). Here's hoping they don't peter out like they did last year after the first few races. It's a shame Williams seems to have another awful car compared to last years, but honestly as long as Maldolnado is unhappy I'm happy (I'm curious to see how Bottas does in his rookie year though). Not much to say about Sauber since they received essentially no coverage during the race. I and everyone else was hugely impressed by Sutil's performance, especially after a year away, and if they're able to keep that same pace this should be a very good year for them. Mclaren had a terrible start to the year and there's been some talk about them reverting to last years chassis, but due to parts shortages and retooling that might be as hard and making the 2013 car competitive. Lotus look to have another great car this year, and after the result they had I'm expecting great things (and a less cautious Grosjean who seemed to really be taking it easy).
Here's a good video of highlights from the race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zZiyrdCperQ
I also caught a bit of the 12 hours of Sebring but couldn't get Speed2 to accept my DirecTV log in so I missed watching the end of the race. I would have loved to have seen the #4 Corvette catching and passing the Risi Ferrari, but I'm happy that my favorite car and drivers won. It's a shame the Audi's won't be back next year, but they really are in a class of their own. They are just so much faster than the petrol P1 cars that it seems unfair to classify them together.
So I pay eighty bucks for two tickets that don't even include seats, and then this happens on the first lap:
The commentators in the video don't live in Baltimore, so let me explain what happened: the race organizers put a chicane on the front straight because that's where the light rail track intersects Pratt St. One of the LMPs lost traction over the train tracks, rear ended another one, who spun and then most of the field dodged him except for like six cars.
So then they spend an hour towing the broken cars off the track and restart the race (for a one-hour ALMS sprint, because the track needs to be clear at 6:15 PM). There were two other moderately large collisions but what really stuck out for me was the #15 BMW driving around for two laps with its rear bumper dangling off the back of the car before it finally fell off in the middle of the track causing a full-course caution. Like, why not go and pit after the first lap with the bumper dangling off?
Overall, it was a fun race but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if they stopped doing it after this fiasco. The course is just too narrow for the number of cars they're trying to cram on there, and even the non-train-track parts of the road course have bumpy and craptastic tarmac. I wonder if there will be any similar fuckup during the IndyCar race tomorrow.