COTA's ALMS/WEC events?

I'll be in a blue Nomex suit in the pit late for any of the FIA WEC action. Look for the guy in the white helmet!

 

I am heading up to the track today. I know they will run in the rain. But, does anyone know what the lightning policy is?

 

At the track.
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Hey y'all. I just posted about 100 photos from a very wet Friday ALMS/WEC day at COTA. Still have lots more to sort, but it's not gonna happen tonight.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.710085265672688.1073741893.157330087614878&type=1

Here are a few:

 

How about restaurant recommendations here in Austin?

 

Franklin's is highly over rated IMO. You can't go wrong with any of the restaurants on South Congress, and if you're a fan of Tex Mex check out some of the places just East of I35. If you're looking for a specific type of food, or a specific atmosphere I can give better suggestions.

 

What is Austin known for? BBQ? Not looking for anything fancy. Someplace downtown so we can see the city.

 

Another question . . . Anyone have radio frequencies? Does radio lemans have scanner frequencies! Having a friggin blast so far! First time seeing WEC cars up close and personal.

 

Iron cactus on sixth, el arroyo on fifth, Frank at fourth and Colorado, or bar Louie on sixth are all places with decent food and in the middle of downtown.

 

great weekend! pics to follow.

I've never been a big fan of Texas but now I love coming to Austin...great people, cool city and phenomenal facility.

 

a teaser, more to follow
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Great racing all weekend. Track was lightly staffed & seemed pretty disorganized all weekend. COTA told Stadium People earlier in the week to staff for 8-10K people & we heard there were about 11k tickets sold. Announced 3-day attendance was only ~33K. After rain all day on Friday, the weather was stunning on Saturday & Sunday. I'm working on more photos to post. I'll let you all know when they're up.

I see that the USCR 2014 calendar has been released, with Austin in the same slot as this year. I really hope the WEC comes back too. The USCR will lose a lot with no P1s and the P2s neutered so the DPs can compete with them. I wanna see P1s in full effect. They were nothing short of amazing. If you didn't go see these cars in the esses cutting through traffic like it was butter, you really missed it this weekend.

 

talked to a few ALMS drivers/crew guys on Saturday who were impressed with the size of the crowd. I think 33k for basically two days (did any fan brave the monsoon on Friday?) is pretty solid for a sports car only weekend in the US.

agree, watching the Audis smoking through the esses was amazing. fastest Audi race lap was only seven or eight seconds off an F1 car. dayum.

I saw that next year it's USCR/WEC on the same weekend. I'll be back.

 

Just a few post race.
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Great shot. That's right near where my son and I sat quite a bit of the time. What a fantastic weekend. We're sitting in Houston airport awaiting our flight to Indy - we plan on using the flight time to go through the 2000+ pics we took.

My understanding is that WEC is signed up for 3 year deal at COTA. Good chance we'll be back.

 

There's no way on earth there were even close to 33K people there, even counting all 3 days. That has to be ticket sales (and giveaways), not actual attendance.

Re: the monsoon, yeah, I was there all day. One of the very few out there at all. You can see my pics above...or at least you could if I could crack the code to making them appear here. This is the only forum where it's a problem for me.

Re: lap times, the fastest of the weekend was the Audi in Qualifying: 1:47.520. That's about 12 seconds off an F1 car qualifying at COTA. Seeing how fast the Audis were really makes one appreciate an F1 car even more. ETA: I see now that the Audi fastest race lap was only about 8.5 sec off the F1 fastest race lap. I wonder what the difference would be if the fueling regs & tires were the same in both series though. I think that would move the difference in the favor of F1.

 

that was my first spectator event at COTA so I have no idea how to gauge crowds; but when drivers and crews are impressed with the crowd that's a good thing

I'd love to know the difference in speed between an 80s F1 car and Group C versus a modern F1 car and the Audi. but at any rate those P1 cars are damn fast given their weight and durability constraints.

 

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Yeah, no doubt. You just have to know the facility. The 3 permanent GSs at T1, T15 and the Main GS on the front straight hold about 24-25K people combined. None of those were ever more than about 10% full either Saturday or Sunday (maybe generous at that), even at the beginning of the ALMS or WEC races..There was basically nobody outside of the race teams, COTA staff, me & a few hardcore fans there on Friday. The crowd may have been good by ALMS standards, but from what we hear, WEC expected more.

 

if WEC expected more they shouldn't have dumped Sebring or Petit from the calendar