Oilpressure

Welcome to another sun-drenched morning at Sonoma Raceway! Today’s weather is pretty much a carbon-copy of yesterday and Friday, which means…perfect. It was a brisk 45° when we woke up at our Petaluma hotel this morning. There is not a cloud in the sky and the gusty winds that were blowing yesterday seem to have subsided.

One thing I noticed while going around to different vantage points yesterday – the fans here are very knowledgeable race fans. I’ve been to tracks where you could tell that the fans in attendance were there to have a good time, but they didn’t care a thing about the racing on the track. That’s not the case here. We were over Turn Two during yesterday’s Porsche GT3 race. The fans up there weren’t just hanging out. They were really into the racing and got excited with every pass they saw.

I talked to several locals that were very familiar with Sonoma Raceway as well as Laguna Seca. Most of them said the same thing; that while Sonoma was a good track with great amenities – Laguna Seca was a great track with very basic amenities. I can certainly understand why sponsors want to entertain people here. Without ever seeing Laguna Seca for myself, I can’t personally speak to what type of facilities they have – but I’m still not sure the series did themselves a favor by forsaking Sonoma for Laguna Seca. We’ll see.

The race doesn’t start until 3:30 local time. We got here and parked the car around 10:00 and there was already a big crowd on site. It’s over five hours until the race, but they are here early and seem ready for another day of racing. There was a palpable buzz among the crowd.

There is a warmup at 11:00 for the Historic Trans Am cars, then the Formula Car Challenge is at 11:30. Another Porsche GT3 race rolls off at 12:15 with the third Historic Trans Am race of the weekend at 1:30. Opening ceremonies for the IndyCar race start at 2:30 with the green flag at 3:30. It’ll be another full day of racing, as the Verizon IndyCar Series crowns it’s new champion after the race.

I’ll have a quick wrap-up here after the race and then my usual Random Thoughts post on Monday. In the meantime, please follow us on Twitter for photos, videos and comments. Follow me at @Oilpressureblog and Susan at @MrsOilpressure. Enjoy the race, and please check back afterwards.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 16, 2018 at 12:25 pm and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.