Don't worry RaceTripper - my MINI is gutted right now prior to being rebuilt as a track day car so I dont don't really have a MINI anymore. But I'll be hanging out around here anyway and you should as well. ;-)

 

To be honest, I have gotten back into two-channel audio. I can only have one expensive hobby at a time, so that's it. Thus, I've been spending my time lately hanging out on audio/music forums.

 

Ok, here's your first-day report--the good, the bad, and the ugly (really ugly):

The good is that the track surface appears very good, and the corners challenging. Well, duh! Seriously, though, we're in the turn 15 grandstands, about 1/4 way up. We have a clear view of 3 corners, partial view of 1 more, and a distant view of a sort of short wiggly straight (can't tell if it's 5-6 or 9-10). There's kitty litter off the sharpest corner in front of us, but no one got into it today. It's a serious corner, sort of like the Grand Hotel Hairpin turn at Monaco. Today in practice a variety of lines were in use, and some were a bit shakey, but the only actual spin was on the turn just before it. No damage, the car actually stayed on the track. Just rubbering in a bit more, I guess.

Also good is the overall handling of mass hoards of people, all trying to get to the same place at the same time. Wait-times for the free shuttle buses were reasonable, ranging from 10 minutes going to the track to about 20 minutes coming back. It looked terrible leaving, with 1000+ people immediately ahead of us, but it actually went quickly, with good line fencing, ala Disney World.

The bad: As good as the track is for the driver, it's less so in the logistics for the ticket holder. Some of it's probably first-day glitches, but here goes--and I stress that this is MY viewpoint, your mileage may vary:

1. The walk from the car (free parking) to the shuttle bus was reasonable, perhaps 1/2 mile, but the walk from the bus drop-off to the actual track entrance was NOT. Definitely not--probably on the order of 1 1/2 to 2 miles, much of it uphill. Blessedly it was downhill on the way back, but there's no earthly reason we could see for having the buses drop off passengers so far back. After all, they could have made the circle drive (buses only) closer to the track, couldn't they? We weren't the only ones complaining about this. I haven't a clue what people with disabilities would do, or even the more pudgey among us, but it was a long walk. Thank God it was November (62 degrees), rather than June, as originally scheduled. I would not even consider going in the summer--and that goes for other races at this venue! (For non-Texans, figure on 100+ in June.)

2. Markings could be a bit better. The grandstands were marked well, but not the section numbers, as we discovered when we hoofed up the steps, only to be turned away at the top.

3. Prices are absolutely outrageous for stuff. Think $80 for a t-shirt. No thanks! I don't buy gear at sporting venues; maybe this is normal, but not for us. A gimme cap was $50. When I was president of our local club, we had caps embroidered with the club logo (4 colors) for $6.50. Of course, Bernie has to get his cut, but even the cap Hubby got about 3 years ago at Monaco was only 1/2 that, and at a time when the Euro was kicking the dollar's butt.

4. Bring cash, lots of it. All 5 ATMs were out/broken before mid-afternoon, and cash was required to get a program ($20). I think cash was required for food, too, although clothing was probably available with a card. Since I never got past the prices, I can't say.

We didn't eat or drink at the track, but beer was $8, food was $10 or more for basic fare. Appeared to be a good variety available.

All of this was on Friday--practice--with the stands appearing to be 1/2 to 2/3 full. Will it be better tomorrow? Hope so, but the long walk appears to be just the way they designed it. Hey--I'm no spring chicken, and my back was seriously in trouble by the time we got back on board the bus.

Oh, and the ugly? Well, the sheriff's department parked a squad car in the middle of the highway, and considered that traffic control going into the parking lot. If you're going to control traffic, do it--direct the left turners, hold back the others, etc. OR, stay out of the way entirely. It was confusing, in an every-man-for-himself, and Hubby hurt a car for the first time in the 43 years that I've known him. Even the cops who witnessed it put it down to "one of those things," with neither driver ticketed. Scratch one Bimmer bumper. The other car looked worse...old Cadillac, and that was with us at a virtual standstill. No one hurt, though, thank Heavens.

Will write more tomorrow, after qualifying.

 

Spent the day yesterday in the broadcast center at COTA - a little building within which all of what I've enjoyed for the last several years is created. From audio, to timing, to on-board video, to manned cameras, every signal at the track goes into that amazing rabbit warren of talented staff. What comes out is pure goodness! I suspect the gents I was hanging out with in the smoking area got tired of my wide-eyed enthusiasm and thanks, but what else could I do? Today I'll stay out with the crowds and just play tourist - and remember my ear plugs!

 

Today was day 2--qualifying, plus some non-F1 racing.


Traffic flow was better, going in and out. Cops actually did their jobs, unlike yesterday. Same long walks (actually farther getting from where we parked to the bus), but the boarding was faster. More school buses in use than coaches, which probably made things easier--less plush, quicker to sit down, plus easier to maneuver in the parking lots. Leaving at the end of the vintage F1 race was actually faster than yesterday, as much of the crowd left at various points after the F1 qualifying ended.


Absolutely no credit or debit cards usable anywhere--ol' Bernie's losing a lot of sales! Besides the ATM meltdowns, apparently card processing failed, too, and "cash-only" signs were at all the vendors.


One thing I didn't mention yesterday, which really affected qualifying today and the race tomorrow, is that the leader board only posts 10 positions. As you know, if someone makes a pit stop, often the biggest action is beyond that point. In Abu Dhabi, Vettel started dead last, yet ended up on the podium. That sort of thing would have been impossible to chart with what is available to those at the track! Our seats are between 2 large screens which have the Speed Channel feed, BUT it is impossible to read the small print, either on the left side of the screen during qualifying, or on the crawl at the bottom of the screen. They are more or less adequate for the video and replays, though. No lap times are available on the board, either--just the top 10 positions and lap number.


IF I do this again, I'll bite the bullet and order FanVision, which are handheld marvels. They have the Speed feed, plus various screens that give lots of other information, like positions, and lap & sector times, etc. They also have earbuds to give you the commentary and radio conversations. Ordered in advance and picked up at the track booth, it was $70; it's $100 without advance reservations (both prices cover all 3 days). Because they have earbuds, 2 friendly people could share. Definitely the way to go--the fellow next to me had it, and was able to tell us lots of info during qualifying that we had absolutely no other way of knowing. The other races were covered, too.


Now, as for the qualifying, it was interesting to see how the drivers did, since no one had an advantage with this new track. Yesterday's practice was difficult to evaluate, because individual teams and drivers are experimenting with lines and settings, trying to get a handle on things. A slow driver yesterday wasn't necessarily a slow driver today! Yesterday Michael seemed to be struggling, while Alonso seemed to be fast. Today it was the opposite. And we couldn't figure out why Rosberg was so far off the pace until we got to the our computers in the motel. That information might have been covered with the FanVision box, but since I was getting info second hand, I didn't know about the older car (or about the Michael/Alonso problem).


It was great to see (and hear) the golden oldies, too--oldies because they were past vintages going back to the 60's, and golden because they are the rarest of the rare. And they WERE scrapping for positions, too.


Tomorrow's the big day!

 

Well I am not going to the race today. I reckon I'll find a sports bar that gets SPEED and let Hobbs and Matchett walk me though it. The knee that the Air Force repaired back in '76 seems to have gotten really mad at me after Friday and Saturday. It's all good though because I have finally connected first hand experience to the many years of vicarious enjoyment that have kept my F1 passion strong. All the best to my NAM friends that will be there, and oh MY it was something to see that 6 wheeled P34 Tyrrell on track yesterday.



Cheers,

Charlie

 

First off, my thanks to Deb for her reports!

You've made me feel as if I was there and I love your take on reporting about things in general at COTA not just the on track stuff! Complete and comprehensive reporting! Thanks so much!



Charlie I hope that you are feeling better today! What a shame that your knee chose this moment to act up! Take care and I hope you mend soon! It must have been quite a session seeing all those vintage GP cars out on the circuit!

 

Lessons learned:

Get tickets high up in the turn 3,4,5 stands. You can see the cars go through the esses and across to 12 where the passes happen, as well as most of the 13 through 19 complex.

Your parking is in N which can be approached from the South avoiding all the traffic from Austin. There was plenty of private parking available just outside N as well. Less than 1/2 mile from car to seat.

Stay South of the track. I live in New Braunfels, so no problem. I was actually amazed at how well the traffic was managed. Much better than any baseball game I've been to.

Bring lots of cash and spend it like play money. My Kimi shirt was $120.

 

Did you have to pay for the parking at the track? We had been told it was $200--not true?

Well, it was a great race--clean and fast, with no one hitting anything bad, although we did hear the Williams' boys nudged each other. That was on the other side of the track from us, so I guess I'll have to watch the race on my TV to see what happened. Webber was nice enough to blow his engine in front of us, and we waved to him as he departed the area on motorcycle. Good Lord, he's good looking! (Hey, I might be married 41 years, but I can appreciate a handsome guy just like the next woman...)

I was tickled to see Hamilton get the win, although I would have liked to have the championship settled on Texas soil. Guess we'll have to see what happens in Brazil.

My friend in the next seat generously kept me abreast of the fight, by virtue of his FanVision gadget. He said they rented all 9000+ units available, and that beat the previous record by over 2000. That little box was great to give everything from sector times to tire changes. It also had news articles, which is where we learned that Massa gave up his grid position to give Alonso the clean side of the track. Such are "no team orders" orders, I guess.

We left after the last hurrah, and Hubby immediately grumbled about how we had 2 hours of misery ahead of us. I told him we'd be in Giddings in 2 hours...and we would have been if we hadn't spent 15 minutes in a Mickeys for a potty break along the way. They had 120,000 people at the track, yet it was well managed and there was absolutely no wait in traffic once back at the parking lot. I admit I felt a bit like a bovine following the people ahead and getting pushed by the people behind on the way to the shuttle buses, though!

Incidentally, I did get a ride on a golf cart-type vehicle on the way to the track (the uphill side), which considerably helped my back. I sat next to the driver and she said that Friday they had only 7 carts, and she herself had convinced management to get many more. Feedback like this from the fans will be a big part of making this track a success. I mentioned the cash-only problems and she hadn't been aware that the entire money handling system had completely crashed--still out today.

I wish I could spend money like Alan suggested, but $120 spent today is $120 less available for our move in January (yes, we FINALLY bought the house we've been drooling over...garage space for 7 car or 27 MINIs, and the house is great, too!).

All in all, it was a great experience. Would I do it again? Yes, if they fix the weak points, and if we rent the FanVision box, too. There's nothing like smelling burning rubber ground off in front of your very eyes, and feeling the vibrations of those cars...

Incidentally, I talked to people all weekend while waiting for shuttles, riding shuttles, sitting in the stands, etc. Best story I heard was a guy who found a "rental" car on Craig's List. Privately owned, and parked at the airport with keys on top of the tire, no paperwork. It was owned by a guy who lived in Austin, but who wanted to avoid the circus and flew out of town for the weekend. The owner rented his SUV to a total stranger for $200--with instructions to tell anyone who asked that he was "borrowing" the car from so-and-so. Boy, such trust! My informant said he was instructed to park it at the Austin airport on his way out town, to be picked up when the owner flew back in...

 

Friday we parked in the N parking lot for free.

Saturday we parked at the private lot just outside N for $20 and reserved a spot there for Sunday for another $20. The folks who live on the south side of the track probably work a whole week to make what a ticket costs. We just thought it was great that they could use their yards to park cars and pull in probably a month's salary in just a weekend.

 

We saw some people doing this across the street from the shuttle drop-off, and commented to each other about it. Trouble is, that would have been an even longer walk! Plus, Sheriff's Department were ruling every intersection, so it might not even have been possible to get there without an ID for that address.

 

I haven't yet read Deb's summaries, I've been a bit out of it this last week, I managed to get a cold Tuesday and it was at its worst Thursday, Friday. Just what I wanted for the flight.

First, my pictures are at: http://btwyx.com/USGP/

And a few pictures:

The start:




A pass:




The end:




A few from the support races:






Our seats are in the background of this one:




Friday didn't start out well. We hadn't paid for parking, that was probably a mistake. So we headed for the shuttle stop downtown, I was hoping they'd made some plan for parking they weren't telling us about. We got caught in commute traffic, it took us 25 mins to go 4 miles on rt 1. When we got to downtown, it was a complete mess. There were masses of cars chasing too few parking places. We ended up at a garage about 6 blocks from the shuttles. By the time we walked back to the shuttle, practice 1 was already stating. We then had to run through their maze (cattle pens ran zig zag 12 times across the park). Once we got to the head of the line (which at least moved quickly), it was a half hour coach ride to the track.

Once we got to the track, we found they'd put the shuttle drop off 3/4 of a mile from the track itself, it was another half hour before we arrived at the track. By that time practice 1 was over. Not a good start. So we got something to eat (took a while because of long queues), then headed over to our seat in time for practice 2. We headed over the bridges over to T3, they were very congested. The cold was pretty bad so I spent quite a bit of the session dozing. I did get some good photos. After the session we tried to catch the tram back to the main plaza, only to find they weren't running up and around turn 1. The trams couldn't make it up the hill to 1, so we had to walk and my knee was bugging me (my knee is iffy at the best of times). At the plaza we caught one of the golf carts they had running back to the shuttle stop for those with impaired mobility.

On Saturday we got a bit of a later start. Though this time we decided to avoid the traffic around the shuttle stop, Google maps was showing it was bad, we headed straight to the same garage as Friday, via the West and South. Once we walked back to the shuttle stop, we found that there was no traffic, and plenty of parking to be had. All the government lots were now empty and taking $20 to park. We caught a golf cart from the shuttle stop and practice 3 was half over. We started at turn 15 and started walking towards turn 11. That's past the speed trap and the fastest point on the track. I didn't get any good photos from that angle. We found the RV park was taking up most of the straight, so we couldn't walk trackside for most of the way. By the time we got to 11 the session was over.

We hung around 11, got something to eat and took some photos of the historic GP cars. There's some good viewing from the general admission area around 11, but its not a particularly good photo spot. We headed off towards 10, I was intending to walk to our seats to get the lay of the track, but by the time we got to 10 we decided to take the tram. We found they'd abandoned the tram and were running shuttle busses instead. They did get us to T1 in time for qualifying. We watched qualifying, and thanks to the "FanVision" unit I'd rented I had some idea of what was going on. I found that it had the UK radio five live commentary as an alternative audio, which was actually pretty good. It also showed the live timing. I was feeling much better, so I was awake for this session. There was also a jumbotron directly opposite our seats, so we got good views of things we couldn't see.

After qualifying, there was the first Ferrari challenge race, GT3 qualifying and the historic GP race. After some lunch we hung around for the extra sessions, and I got some pretty good pcitures. There was one particularly dramatic incident near the end of the Ferrari race where one car totally missed its braking point and locked up. It went skidding all the way across the corner, across the runoff, across the kitty litter and ended up crunched into the barrier in a cloud of tire smoke. I just happened to be lining up to take a photo of that car, so i got a great sequence of photos of all that. You can see a few of them starting: http://btwyx.com/USGP/Pages/20.html I got more pictures of the GT3 qualifying, I was surprised that they seemed very agressive making passes. It looked more like a race to me. After that session I was feeling a bit ragged, so we left and caught the shuttle to main plaza. The queue for the golf carts was too long so we walked to the shuttle.

Sunday we wanted to set out early to get ahead of the rush. Our experience from Montreal was the Sunday got insane very early. This time we headed for the closer garages, but from the West. There was no traffic and we found a parking spot much closer than previously. The shuttle was uneventful and we caught a golf cart and then another shuttle. I got off at turn 10 to complete my recce, the wife carried on to our seats (she got a blister was making walking not too comfortable). Early on they had the GT3 race and the second Ferrari challenge race. I spied out the decent viewing and photo ops, there was some good viewing from in front of the T10 grandstand looking up to 11, and then over a natural bowl towards 5-8. I got some good pictures of the GT3 cars. Its a pitty I couldn't have done this during the first 2 practice session and got pics of the F1 cars. For the Ferraris I set up with a view of the Esses (3, 4, 5) and then walked around 2 to the back side of turn 1. I got some more good picture.

After that I got to my seat to watch the driver's parade and some of the ceremonies. I ducked out to get a bite to eat, but the lines were long so I only just managed to get something after standing in line for 40 mins and rush back to my seat while the cars rolled off on the formation lap. I managed to get back in time to watch the start, and the expected turn 1 carnage which didn't materialise. It was surprisingly clean race, very little (any?) contact. Turn 1 was a great place to watch from, it was where I'd wanted a seat from the first time I saw a track map. It just took them a while to deign to sell seats there without a PSL. From our vantage point on the outside looking back across the factilities. You can see all of the front straight from turn 20 up to 1 and half way around 2. You could see a bit around turn 8 and a bit between 12 and 13. Then all the way around 16 and up to 19.

The race was awesome, one of the best. I also managed to make sense of it while I was there, thanks to the Five Live commentary. There was a surprising amount of passing at turn 1 right in front of us. The popular overtaking line was to take a wide entry and a late apex to get a sling shot down to 2. I've got lots of pictures of that maneuver. Its either overtaking, or defending an attempted pass. If someone outbrakes you and steals the apex of 1, that's the way to defend and retake the position. If the driver in front of you takes a defensive mid-track line, you can take the wide line and take them on the exit.

At the start, Webber made a surprisingly good start, and actually jumped Hamilton. That was a surprise, but Hamilton eventually got that back. The main story was out front of course, with Vettel and Hamilton dragging out their duel for 40 odd laps. We were waiting for ever for that move. The commentary (and the TV pictures) made it sound like he was so close for so long. Further back there was Alonso, jumping 2 places before he even got to turn 1. Massa drove a brilliant race. Button was having fun with his alternate tire strategy. The Lotus pair kept steaming forward, to balance the Mercedes' who only seemed to go backwards. I was a bit surprised that the drivers weren't really hitting the apex, most of them seemed to be wide by a few feet, or more. That could easily be explained by missing your braking point by about 0.01 seconds. It'd be pretty tricky to hit that apex perfectly.

After the race we hung around to let the crowds die down a bit. We walked down the hill towards the front straight. The view up the hill is quite startling, its steep. We walked through the main straight grandstand, to see what the view was like from down there. We had hope to get to walk down the front straight, they'd allowed a bunch of fans on to watch the podium ceremony, but they weren't letting anyone more on. We hung around the main plaza a bit listening to some of the live music and got a bite to eat. After about an hour and a half we set off for the shuttle. The line for the golf carts was much too long so we walked. We got about half way to the shuttle before the backup started. Things were very confused. There were 4 different lines, for downtown (for out of state visitors), for the Expo (for instate visitors), for the airport and for taxis. There was a lot of confusion about which line was which, and if the people walking past the backup were cutting the line or just headed for another line further up. There was no one doing any crowd management. The line once stopped, moved very slowly which was not encouraging. It eventually took us 54 mins to get on the shuttle after the line came to a halt. They had all their cattle pens and zig zags set up at the shuttle stop, but they were only using one zig and one zag. They could have made a much long maze to stop the line backing up so far.

Apart from Friday morning and the line for the final shuttle home, it was a great weekend. The track is great. I'd really love to have the opportunity to drive it sometime.

 

Great reports guys! Unfortunately Deb, some of the problems you described are not isolated to the Texas race. Abu Dhabi had a similar set up where there were only two video screens up and they were too far away to read any of the information on them. I tried using the ESPN F1 app on my phone, but it didn't update as fast as the action was happening. They didn't have any FanVision gadgets over here (that I saw anyway).

 

After reading Deb's accounts, I assume she was at the Expo centre park and ride being from instate. Leaving early was probably a smart move. The Expo line was the first one we came across which had stopped moving. Maybe 300 yards before our line stopped moving. I'd guess that it was about an hour and a half stuck in line for those poor sods.

As much as we paid for our seats, I wasn't begrudging any expense which would make the experience better, that included FanVision. We should probably have sprung for a second for the wife, the commentary made the whole thing much more intelligible. The food their was ruinously expensive, but you expect that and as I say I wasn't worrying about it. The main problem was the long lines.

I think the walk from the shuttle stop to the main entrance was "only" 3/4 of a mile, but it was much too long. And as Deb mentions the provision for mobility impaired was pitiful. They needed many more golf carts, they also probably needed a separate track for them to separate them from the pedestrians. Trying to run the golf carts along the same tracks as 100,000 pedestrians was not working well. But by any reckoning, the walk was ridiculous. I think they're looking at Montreal and seeing there's a 1 mile walk from the Metro stop to the track, so they can have the same. It acts as a buffer.

My theory on how they should handle the shuttle is they should commandeer some of the parking lots around the track and build a series of stops right by the gates. What was meant to be the tram and became shuttle busses, runs you around the perimeter of the circuit. Triple the width of the perimeter track and run the shuttles around to all the gates and drop people directly there. Then you'd eliminate 2 of the stages of getting to the track, walking from the shuttle, and catching another shuttle.

As Deb had seats at T15, which was the closest stand to the entrance she didn't have the bother of trying to get to other parts of the track. Once they substituted the shuttle busses for the trams, it actually worked quite well. But it seems they should have tested their solution before it failed on the first day.

Anyway, it was an awesome race and even these annoyances didn't spoil it. It did mean we were quite fried by the time we got back to the hotel that evening.

 

A handful of us are driving it as part of the "Cadillac V-series Performance Lab". My session is the morning of December 7th.

There are also several local DE groups planning events for 2013. But like the F1 event goodies, it looks like these DEs will be 2 to 3 times the normal cost.

 

Yes, we were parked at the Expo, which worked out well. We were staying in Giddings, about 50 miles east of Austin (it was 45 miles to the parking lot & shuttle). There was no charge for parking, or for the shuttles, and other than Friday's every-man-for-himself melee getting into the Expo grounds, it was well controlled. Plenty of volunteers directing traffic to the next available parking spots, and enough signs and people to follow to get to the buses themselves. I made my distance estimates based on walks I take within my subdivision, and there was a point where people walking from the Expo shuttles merged with those from the downtown Austin shuttles, which dropped off at a different place. I don't know which path was longer.

The one cart driver I spoke to told me she thought they would modify next year's people handling by using trams on the asphalt walkways, rather than by using the individual golf carts which ran on the dirt and gravel next to the walkways. It was definitely the poorest part of the experience, not just because I'm a typical American with too many pounds, but also because those who have any kind of physical disability were not well served. I broke my back several years ago in a car crash, and I was in serious pain walking to and from the shuttles. Those who were attempting to walk with canes and crutches on the gravel would probably not return. And there were some of us who were showing age--yup, a lot of younger folks, but many of us were (are) over 60! They were basically ignored in the planning, which is surprising in this day of ADA laws.

As for the food, we purchased only a little at the track. I got one of the Aussie Pies, which was a good deal ($8), but too spicy for me--then again, I was not given the type that I ordered. The rest of the time we ate granola bars and peanuts, which we purchased elsewhere, along with water bottles refilled at the motel. Our bags were checked, but no one ever commented on any of it--apparently they were only looking for weapons. Hey, this IS Texas, y'all!

 

It's over! Season's over and so is Speed Channel's coverage. Here's to the winners (not mentioning them in case you didn't watch the race yet), and wasn't that some action in Brazil?!

Hope NBC is able to get it together. There was a segment at the end of the race with video clips of the past 17 years. Quite a collection of clips, but surprisingly it wasn't shown on the HD version of Speed Channel--only the regular version. At least that's what happened on Dish Network.

Besides the championship, the last race, and the end of Speed Channel's coverage, there was also Michael's second retirement. Quite a day, and pretty sad at times...

 

This 2012 season has been a paradox... seems as if yesterday, back in March, we were anticipating the start of the GP season, in Australia, and then here we are in November after a long 20 races at Interlagos, watching the checkers fly for the final time in 2012!

Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel on winning the WDC!

Here's to Fernando Alonso on his 2012 season as he gave it everything he could... Bravo!

Also a big tip of the helmet to Felipe Massa and his return to the podium... a genuine nice guy who has struggled mightily and perservered!

In addition, adieu to Michael Schumacher... thanks for all the excitement you gave us during your career . You will be missed.

Darn right Deb as Brazil gave us a smashing good race to finish the year on! DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA! Had me on the edge all the way thru... Felt bad for Hulkenberg and Hamilton and their coming together... 'The Hulk' deserved better (a win) and it was great fun watching him and Hamilton trade fast laps under trying conditions!

I too fervently hope that NBC will do F1 right but I have my doubts (see earlier post). Well at least they will have David Hobbs, Steve Matchett, and Leigh Diffey in the booth (I will miss Bob Varsha and also Sam Posey's commentary ) and that is a postive sign!

I did love that collection of clips! It was a fun ride these last 17 yrs with the gang (Varsha, Hobbs, Matchett and Posey)... It has just gone by too quickly and now sadly that era is over...

F1 will be all the poorer without Schu on the grid. I still believe he was more than capable of winning a GP and it is only bad luck and a mediocre chassis that prevented him from visiting the top step of the podium. The old boy still has the right stuff!

All in all Deb, you're right... It was quite a day!

 

I'd again like to thank Deb, Charlie and Btwyx for their insightful reports on the USGP and a big thanks to Btwyx for posting up some pics for us all!

If anyone else has pics that they'd like to share with their NAMily then by all means post up! We sure love pics... yes we do!

 

I was also at the USGP and had a fantastic time. Great reports above and a few comments on some of the items.

Food was insanely priced but I totally expected that and have seen it just as bad at large concert events and other races. Personally, I was parked in P so a 5 minute walk from my seats to the car. My friend and I picked up sandwiches and chips and ate right before walking in each day. Left some snacks in the car just in case.

Credit cards - they were being accepted some places. I agree that glitch probably cost them a lot of sales. Sales were probably still heavy but would have been much more so since a lot of people wouldn't have that much cash on them. It's not like the ATM's were easy to access either since everyone needed to get cash. They need to setup the "Official" merchandise tickets different next year. Larger, easier to look at items before walking up. People were spending 15-20 minutes each just to get some t-shirts. You couldn't see the products until right when you got to the front of the line and sizes were very hit or miss. I spent 15 minutes with a sales person and came away empty handed because there was nothing in my size and they weren't marked. The sales person was just going box to box.

They need more paved walkways. The gravel is not fun to walk on and is so dusty. I felt so bad for the wheelchairs I saw here and there. They also need to better direct flow on or add a second bridge going into the center pavilion. I went over once and said "never again". Went the long way around from T1 every time after that. On the hills, I would suggest a paved walkway and a couple sets of stairs as well so people can shortcut if they are able.

No traffic issues. I was fully expecting to sit for long period but it moved at a reasonable rate.

Seats were awesome. Huge view of a great portion of the track. Binoculars were definitely appreciated and allowed me to follow the cars almost all the way around and see all timing and scoring on the screens.

Can't wait for next year!!

 

The ATMs were out of service at mid-Friday afternoon, and to my knowledge never came back up again. I stood in line at one, and watched it crater about 5 people in front of me, which didn't make me happy--I'd already wasted about 20 minutes in that particular line, and that was the 4th one I'd visited.

It's possible the successful credit card processors were using an off-track system. Nowadays you need nothing more than a cellphone or ipad app, which is a great advance over the "kachunka machine" I used to use back in the 80's (if you're old enough to know what I mean!).

I never got in any of the merchandise lines--the prices posted on hanging samples were enough to dissuade me. I would have been REALLY unhappy if there was no more organization than you describe with respect to inventory!

My personal impression--and it may be totally incorrect--is that all the construction emphasis was placed on getting the track and car-stuff finished, with not enough time left to get the pathways done. On my treks to and from the shuttle areas, I noticed how one paved corner on the path quickly was circumvented in favor of a more logical shortcut--until that, too, was blocked. I suspect they've already gotten an earful from the fans regarding shuttle dropoff location, gravel paths, and access/assistance for seniors and fans with disabilities. My own daughter uses a wheelchair, and I was glad she didn't come this first year.

 

It seemed to be related to vendor on where the CC machines were working. The food stands and T1 were all using them just fine as well as the "official" merch tents and the Lotus merch stand in the main field thing. But tons of other teams were not taking cards and food vendors in other areas. The official tent wasn't without their issues though, I had to try three cards to get one to work when I bought my bag of goodies. I kept thinking "why don't they all just get a "square" and use it!" but a few attempts at using cellular data and that question was answered very quickly.

I'll be back at COTA the first weekend in March for the Rolex/Grand Am race so I'll be able to see what all has been updated and improved by then.