cart presence at autosport show

[bella]

ok, there wasn't one. well, maybe there was.
1. ROCKINGHAM - seemed more popular than the established circuits stands. people were looking at the nascars and scratching their heads, and missing bryan herta's rockingham liveried champcar completely. however, there were no car stickers left, and a lot of people had taken ticket booking forms.
2. COSWORTH - there was kenny brack's car on the stand, with a cossie engine in a little glass case underneath it. people were looking it, and thinking 'i'm sure that's not an f1 car'. as this was the first time i have ever seen a champcar, i lingered a while, and drooled. it was beautiful, way more so than a f1 car.

i may have missed anything else. rockingham's stand was pretty big, and very busy. people listened to stuff that was being talked about, and the words 'euro' and 'speedway' were mentioned a lot. as were 'come on, where's the catering area?'

[OVERSTEER]

I was at the Rockingham stand quite a bit today, and what was happening was that the two people speaking was interviewing John Cleland (Top bloke!)and John Dalziel after which I got JC's Autograph. They were also asking the people who were there questions related to american racing, the Rockingham and Euro speedways, the drivers and teams, and for people who got a question right they won a Fedex CART world series T shirt (By the way I did win one). And also there was this amazing game called Nascar 3 running and I had a go with that too.

[Jay]

Bella, you should go to the Rockingham race and look at the Champ cars in the paddock. If it is like Toronto, you have to make sure that you don't get your toes run over when they are being wheeled to and from the pits, but it is still amazing to see them take apart, and put one back together again all in an hour. And unlike a Formula One paddock, there isn't the overwhelming smell of gasoline!

[Liz]

Jay's right - I have a nice close up picture of Helio in his car being towed right past my feet - I resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, but I was close enough so I could have done, and no security guys to stop me.

I like the sound of "FedEx World Series" although there are people who will think it's baseball.

[bella]

i'm happy to pay my £130 for a great few days racing. i could get in free anyway, but i want a seat.

can't wait to see all those cars close up!!!

[KC]

The paddock and cold pits at a CART race are very accessible to pit pass ticket holders. I have a picture of a friend of mine leaning up against Tony Kanaan's back up car parked outside the pits next to other official vehicles like any other car. I literally bumped into Dan Gurney, chatted with Cristiano daMatta and Paul Tracy. It is much more fan oriented than other major series.

[Liz]

Well, ALMS is very friendly, but I admit the average fan is more likely to recognize the Champ Car guys.

P.S. I'm getting three days in a silver grandstand at the Montreal F1 race for less than I'd pay at Rockingham.

[bella]

*previous thoughts deleted. i sounded like a rockingham salesperson*

yeah, but i get to go to a gp this year with arrows in the paddock club for nothing

it will be nice to meet the drivers at rockingham though. so long as it's not full of the type of brit who thinks races are theme parks to bring small children, and getting autographs is like a trophy haul, and not an opportunity to meet human beings doing what we'd all love to do.

driving quickly, i mean. not getting the best seats in the house for free...

[Liz]

I hope that lot will all be at the BTCC. It's cheaper to take the rugrats to the BTCC after all - there's no child admission fare to Rockingham on race day.

I hope someone who goes to Rockingham will write it up for the Newsletter. I'll be interested to hear how it turns out. Do you think they have scheduled it on Saturday in case of rain? Otherwise it doesn't make sense to make people take two days off work to do a race weekend.