United States Grand
Prix
November 18, 2012
Circuit of the
Americas, Austin, Tx, USA
The Grand Prix weekend, for me, was legendary. It was ‘once
in a lifetime’ stuff. Formula 1 has
always been the ultimate in racing in my book. Several years ago I had the
opportunity to race go karts competitively, and it was the closest to this very
hard to reach sport I’d come: Formula Automobile Racing.
Formula
In auto racing there are many different types of racing
series because there are many different types of cars. In racing, the
power-to-weight ratio is key and nowhere is there more power and lighter cars
than Formula, or open wheel racing. These cars are the lightest, most agile
cars with aerodynamic wings front and rear to increase grip. Formula cars are
open wheel, designed to meet the specifications of the sanctioning body they
race under. Formula 1 is the pinnacle.
GP Weekend
This was a special weekend and I managed to buy the tickets
as soon as they went on sale. I was to attend Friday, Saturday and Sunday as
all three days would have racing action, with several support series as well as
Formula 1. To actually attend a Grand Prix is to me the most thrilling activity
I can imagine. An F1 Championship has been ongoing since the early 1900’s. The
traditions and customs of the racing elite and the F1 Championship are the
stuff of legend. To witness it all in person would really be hard to envision.
Yet, I was to go.
Friday
Jeff Norem and I drove from Houston Friday morning, later
than I’d wanted but at least we were on the way. We arrived at the circuit at
almost 11am just in time to see Historic GP. These are the cars of yesteryear,
with some from the 80’s, 70’s and even a 60’s era Ferrari. The other makes were
the Tyrell 6-wheeler who broke on Friday and didn’t make the Saturday race,
Brabham, Lotus and others. Seeing these racing machines so close up was
fantastic! Every one is an incredible machine, impeccably maintained for these
races, and they are racing hard! Jeff and I walked the entire
track on Friday watching the action from differing general admission viewing
areas. The Tower and amphitheatre are impressive with areas to view Turns 15,
16, 17 and 18. And the run out of the Tower turn to 19 is an excellent action
packed spot. We waited in one food line and it was horrible (45mins),while
standing in line a man with a strong British accent said, “Enjoying the chips
are you then?”. He’d been standing in front of me for quite some time and had
turned and spoken to me. I was at first embarrassed as I thought I was flooding
his nostrils with an unwanted odor of our American chips and started to face
away when he said, “No, it was the smacking in my ear, its all I could hear!”-
or something equally cheeky. I apologized out loud finally after finishing the
bag of chips (I was really hungry) while waiting on the sandwiches which were
being cooked. We chatted for a second or two when I mistakenly asked where his
accent come from- England or Australia. He was mock-offended and remarked not
to feel bad most Canadians couldn’t
recognize a Scottish accent. Blindsided, I apologized again for suggesting he
could be Australian, and he laughed and apologized for calling me Canadian and
we were cool! Regardless of the
energetic conversations, I decided not to wait in the more-than-an-hour lines
for merchandise. We watched F1’s second practice on Friday from Turn 11 and the
views of the track are spectacular. Walking around the top of the viewing area
at Turn 1 and seeing the track laid out below for the first time is a lifelong
memory …it was so stunning! Unforgettable.
Saturday
I drove to Austin on Saturday morning with my girlfriend
Heidii. We went a new route and it worked out better. We didn’t arrive any
earlier though, but considering it was a 3 ½ hour drive and I’d gigged the
night before we did well. We arrived again at 11am. The crowds were much larger
and after looking at the hill we’d have to climb to return before qualifying,
we decided to park our chairs at the top of the hill at Turn 1. There was a
tight but friendly crowd with us, it was great. It was remarkable how several
strange languages could be heard at any given time. We hear Spanish frequently,
but there were others, I heard MidEast,
Japanese, as well as Portugese from a group who were Brazilian. We watched
Qualifying from Turn 1, then walked down and around the main grandstands to
turns 20, 19 and the Tower turns of 16, 17, and 18. We had a great time
watching the Historic GP race from our vantage points between 18 and 19. The
Brabham won the race over a field of 15-20 cars, although there were only a few
who could compete for the win. All raced hard and clean, as these cars compete
in this series accompanying Formula1 on certain weekends. All cars are
maintained with factory or custom made parts and pieces from the original
makers and some are maintained and fielded by the same team of engineers and
mechanics that operated it when it was actually competing in Formula 1. There
were several well esteemed drivers as well including Arie Luyendyk. Much to our
surprise, a free concert was scheduled for after the Historic race, and since we were
next to the amphitheatre, we stayed another hour and enjoyed Collective Soul
and a few expensive beers. It truly was a great day of festivity, celebration,
freedom and the passion everyone wore for auto racing. The walk back up the
hill was not as bad as we thought, and Heidii snagged a free USGP poster on the
way out!!
Sunday
The dawn of the Grand Prix morning is like any other sunup-
except for the butterflies! There were butterflies in my stomach as I walked to
the truck. I was determined to get there early. I picked up my son Chris at his
house and we sped away in his Honda. We had good pace, though we saw a lot of
traffic speeding well past the posted limit. Having traveled the same path
yesterday and Friday, I told him not to speed as we will see many cops as we
get closer. The Texas Highway Patrol had decended on this area and were
determined to pre-empt anyone thinking they could drive fast to this speedway!
They were EVERYWHERE!! After we passed the first one issuing a ticket to a
speeder, I told Chris, “Watch, there will be 8 more before we get to the
track”. There weren’t 8 more, there were 12 more before I lost count! Traffic
was light all three days, and was not jammed at all except one instance in the
shuttle on Sunday when we had to wait 5-10 minutes for traffic to clear, and
leaving on Sunday evening there was an accident that caused delays. Given the
total number of people who attended the weekend, exceeding 250,000- traffic
went extremely well. I have to tell you about the helicopter landing station at
the track. There was a line of covered shelter areas with lighted landing spots
for at least 6 aircraft at a time, and there was a steady stream of private
helicopters dropping off and picking up their executive clients. It was crazy
how many helicopters were present, as two to three approached the track from
the south-west, four or five were landing, taking off or sitting. Then, in the
distance to the east, the receding forms of several helicopters leaving the
area. This was a seemingly never-ending stream! It was in itself incredible!
That’s a lot of $$ people!
We had a great drive in, and got there an hour earlier,
10am, but the crowd was already huge, and we decided to catch our spots just
below turn 1 in full view of the starting grid and pit lane. Though it was some
distance away, we had the action at turn 1 just to our right, a large TV screen
to our front across the track, and with binoculars an excellent view of the
proceedings at the grid. Both Chris and I got excellent pic’s of the start and
crucial action, though Hamilton’s pass of Vettle for the win was at turn 12, we
saw it coming and were watching the battle on the screens. The crowd
absolutely erupted when he made the pass. Vettle had many fans in the
stands, but it was Hamilton’s day and he won the race. Alonso had a good race,
but not good enough to make a serious dent in Vettle’s championship points
advantage. Jensen Button had perhaps the best race coming from far back in the
field to finish 5th behind the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa.
-katykarter
posted by Katykarter @ 2:36 PM
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