WEC coming to Texas, Sept 20th.

All over the place, Audi 1 & 2...made the drive home that much better. Nine picture T-Red. We toured the whole course while the race was on...stayed up on the hill for quite some time, although we had seats in the main grandstand. Track is beautiful...and fast. All day for both days...

I'm home also.
I spent a fair amount of the night at turn 1, I need to upload a few pics that came out great.
If anyone is on the fence about going next year I'd highly recommend it.
We are hoping on taking an RV next year, but it's to far out to make those sorts of decisions.
Shocking the 9 year old LOVED IT, around hour 1.5 he asked "Can we stay for the whole race?" I didn't think we were going to make it nearly that far, but he was a real trooper all the way to the end. I'm trying to think of just the right thank you for being a great kid prize for him.

Edit: we went in the CR 43 mpg on its second ever fill (37 first ever(was in town), and 40 on 3rd fill). Cruised around 75 for most of the trip.

Get him advanced tickets for next year?

I will be back next year with my son (15) for his inaugural road trip!

This year we stayed in San Marcos, which is 30 mins down the road. Toll road at 80-85mph makes trip home that much more exciting...if your ears are still ringing with the rumbling of the race.

It was an awesome weekend, My brother and I went all three days and had a blast. All the supporting races were entertaining with some great battles. I think I took like 35+ gb of pics/video.

The facility was pretty nice, the only complaints I would have would be the lack of shade and the fact that the staff members reminded me of the TSA. They could relax a little with "non permitted items". I was still able to sneak in my granola bars, water, and video camera though. Also since the grand stands were super sparse, it would have been nice to let fans go to all the viewing areas even if their ticket wasn't specifically for that area since there were plenty of open seats.

This is the only pic I have on my iPad, but I'll post more later....




The golf did great.

The first tank on the way down to Austin was ok, we hit torrential rain so my mpg suffered a little the last 2-3 hours, we even had to pull over for 30 min because I was having to drive 30mph on the 80mph toll road with my hazards on. It was 330 miles to my friend's house then we went back and forth to the track (30 miles) 3 times and then filled up before leaving on Sunday.

Tank #1
13.57 gallons
573.8 miles
42.3 mpg

Tank #2 just wanted to see if I could improve mpg on the way home so I filled up after only 337.4 miles.

7.31 gallons
337.4 miles
46.2 mpg

I drove 70-80 the whole trip so not too bad.

You could go anywhere you wanted on the track. My father-in-law (70'ish) and I had main grandstand seats (see earlier post) and we walked the entire track. Watched the start of WEC from the hill, then took a another tour of the track...walking in the rain was not a great idea, but we took in every corner so we could plan on the next time we are here. You could go anywhere with a regular ticket ($79), even the paddock. Only the suites and pits were off limits, with exception of the open walk for cars and autograph times. I actually took a video of the Tudor race roll out...starting with the "Flying Lizard" Audis...there were only few limits, and thank goodness for the "TSA" like security. At about 10pm, those double-shot expressos came in handy!

Our tickets were for turn 15 and they wouldn't let us go up to the main grandstands...weird. We did walk the whole track, the top of turn 1 was pretty cool and the cars coming down to turn 11 before the back straight was pretty cool to watch in the dark.

I was walking around right before the rain started and luckily had time to dive under the bridge by the esses and stayed dry.

My buddy and I flew down from Ohio for the race. I have to say people in Texas don't know what rain is. Everyone slams on their brakes the moment a drop of water hits a windshield. Almost no one has raingear. Most had those cheezy ponchos and ended up soaked. Having witnessed the legendary drive by Wolf Henzler at the monsoon known as ALMS Mid-Ohio 2011, we were more than prepared for a few Texas sprinkles. That was easily the most miserable race weekend we've experienced thus far and we stayed at the Hilton Airport instead of camping as usual. I don't think it ever dropped below 80% humidity while we were in Austin. We hung out with the Porsche factory teams at the Hilton, which was pretty cool.

Once we figured out the COTA was not a typical race track (no coolers, no outside food, outrageous prices, limited spectator viewing spots, $20/day to park out in a damn field a mile away from the gate, etc.), our food and beverage costs reduced significantly. We noticed that they were lazily only checking the main backpack compartment, so we stopped at subway to pick up lunch and a gas station to buy water and Gatorade on Saturday. A gatorade at the track was $5 and we bought 2 for $3 at the gas station and they were larger... It was nice to see all the WEC LMP1 cars and cross COTA off the bucket list, but it doesn't compare to traditional tracks like Road America or Road Atlanta, which were created with a paint brush and a majestic backdrop.

We camped out at the turn 1 grandstand for qualifying and the WEC race. The main grandstand on the front straight offered shade, but little else other than seeing cars buzz by and the noise was too loud even with ear plugs. The rest of the track reminded us more of Sebring in that you could only see one or two turns due to the nature of a relatively flat track. Turn 1 offered the best spectator viewing spot, given that you could see most of the track.

https://plus.google.com/photos/114682538683772591538/albums/6061676215261637313 I only brought my phone with me because it was rainy and outrageously hot, but my 20mp Sony Xperia Z1 Compact snapped a few decent photos.

I agree about the atmosphere at Road Atlanta being....more welcoming. They are so much more relaxed. The day before Petit last year they just asked us at the gate if we brought any alcohol, other than that we just drove right in and brought whatever we wanted. The scenery around the track is also more picturesque in Braselton.

Hopefully in the years to come COTA and their staff will cultivate the Lone Star Le Mans into more of an experience, rather than just another race day on their schedule. The track itself is very cool though, seems to have a good variety of turns, straights, sweepers, esses...etc. Plus the only other track besides Sebring to see the WEC cars in the US I think.

Here is footage I took of the Tim Bell 370z crash during the first lap of the conti race.

I added the onboard footage after my vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQitOyEyRd0&list=UUHH-MiUTt98J5lv227xn_Jg

9 year old moments after "can we stay for the whole race"
And storm rolling in from tower.
Once I'm back home (I'm in Nashville in sprinter) ill upload some real camera pics.

^^^ Awesome shot of your kid As for that tower, it would make a dandy lightning rod, not sure I'd be up there during any kind of storm

Made it out there as well for the night race, good times!

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=96177

Working on the picture thing...my video of the roll-out for the Tudor Race ws too big, will figure out a way to post. Gallery link for two pictures.

50R BTR said:

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=96177

Working on the picture thing...my video of the roll-out for the Tudor Race ws too big, will figure out a way to post. Gallery link for two pictures.

Click to expand...

YouTube.com

http://youtu.be/SVQbCT_YpqA

Posted the video...thanks.

Last week, Typhoon Phanfone dumped on Japan during the Suzuka Formula 1 race.

This weekend an even bigger storm, Super Typhoon Vongfong, will make landfall in southern Japan during the 6 Hours of Fuji, the first World Endurance Championship event since the race at the Circuit of the Americas.

Green flag is 1100 Japan time Sunday, or 2200 EDT Saturday, if anyone is interested.

There is also another F1 race this weekend, the first Grand Prix of Sochi. Probably the last, too.

After three hours, the Fuji 6 Hours is not going so well for Audi. The two Toyotas lead, #14 Porsche is 3rd, and after the next round of pit stops the other Porsche might move into 4th. So Audis are stuck in 4th and 6th, Audi #1 about 40 seconds ahead of #2.

But the main story is, the Toyotas, Porsches, and Audis are all pretty competitive on the track, with all of them having a fastest lap between 1m27.7 and 1m28.6. Audi durability is not likely to win for them this time, in a race of only six hours.

There are 27 cars on the track, and it's not an especially big track; but all the drivers in all the classes are driving responsibly and competently. There are no idiots in GT wandering across the track, trying to find an LMP1 car to run into.