Oilpressure

By Susan Phillips

I’ve written here before about my oldest son, Eric. He has been going to Indy with us every single year since 2004. George converted him to an IndyCar fan at an early age and he still is one today.

Eric came out to our house last month to watch the championship race at Laguna Seca. Neither he nor I had ever watched a race from there and George started explaining the history of that track. After the race, Eric stayed for dinner. While George was in the other room typing his race re-cap, Eric started asking me about what tracks we went to this year and which ones I liked best. George overheard me say that I didn’t care for St. Pete. He stopped his typing to come out and ask why not.

He seemed to take it personally that I said I didn’t enjoy that race. I’m not sure why, because I told him at the time I didn’t like it.

I enjoyed getting away to Florida in early March (who wouldn’t?). All of our travel was nice and we ate some good seafood. But I didn’t care for being at the track at all.

This was the first time either of us had been to a temporary street race. I didn’t realize until we got there just how temporary everything is at a street race. The first day there that Friday, we used the media parking pass they had sent us. It was in a downtown parking garage that was far, far away from the track. I think we walked about a mile and a half before we got inside the track. Once there, a friend of ours gave us his parking pass he had bought, because they were staying directly across the street from the track and didn’t even have a car, so at least that worked out well for us.

But everything seemed so makeshift there. The paddock was very bizarre. Some of the teams were housed inside a parking garage just off of the track. But it was so dark in there that they all had floodlights set up, so they could see to work on the cars. Other teams were placed in the daylight outside the parking garage.

We had to cross the track on a temporary bridge set up for the race. As cars from the support series went underneath, the whole bridge shook from the wind from the cars. I get motion sickness and that sort of made me queasy just crossing over it. George doesn’t get motion sickness, so you know how much sympathy I got when I said it had upset my stomach.

We finally made it to the media center, but it was also makeshift. It was located in the second floor of a local performing arts theater in a room that overlooked part of the track. The seating was first come, first serve and there was only one spot left. It made sense for George to get it since he did most of the writing and posting from there. But I usually do a post from the track and I take all of the photos. I needed a space too, but I was lucky to get an empty chair off to the side, with no electrical outlets.

The whole temporary setup just seemed strange to me. The seats along the main straightaway (an airport runway) were all temporary bleachers, the winner’s circle was a temporary setup in a strange location behind the pits. And all of the concession stands looked like something you’d see at a weekend carnival at the local mall parking lot. George seemed to be intrigued with the idea that in a few days this would all be gone. I found nothing intriguing at all about it. It just seemed to have a cheap feel to it.

On Saturday, we walked to the far end of the track to get what were supposed to be better views. There was a small park at the far end of the track. While that part was kind of neat for an in-town setting, the track was so tight through there, you could only catch a quick glimpse of the cars as they went whirring by. And did I say that we walked? That meant we had to walk back.

We ended up watching qualifying and the race from behind the pits and watching the video screen set up across the track. We could see the pit stops right in front of us, but because of the concrete barriers set up, we could see nothing on the track except for the top of the driver’s helmets going by.

I felt very detached from the race and the track. I was surprised to see that there were a lot of people there each day, because it really didn’t feel like a race track. It felt more like a neighborhood street festival that happened to have race cars going by.

I told George while we were there that it was a fun weekend, but as far as the race and the track was concerned, it was my least favorite track. So I don’t know why he acted so surprised when he heard me tell Eric the same thing six months later. Based on that experience, I don’t know that I ever want to go to a temporary street race again.

And now he’s talking about going to Long Beach next April. I’m sure I’ll go and have fun on the west coast, but I’m afraid the race and the track will be much of the same that we experienced in St. Pete. Is it just me? Am I expecting too much from a temporary track?

I love going to different tracks. I like some more that others, but I have good things to say about every one I’ve been to except for St. Pete. If anyone has been to both tracks, will I like Long Beach better? George has talked about us getting Passports just so we can go to the Toronto race someday, but I’m afraid it will be just like St. Pete. To those of you that go to a lot of temporary tracks, please tell me what I’m missing.

This entry was posted on October 25, 2019 at 4:05 am 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.