CART/CCWS Race weekend story thread

[Tony Clifton]

I thought it might be kind of fun to re live some of the great race weekend stories.

I will go first.

Let's turn back the clock to the weekend of October 1998 and the racetrack.........California Speedway.

Me and friend catch an early morning Saturday Southwest flight out to Ontario Airport, get a rental car and arrive at the speedway.
Girl at the rental counter asks us "oh you here for the race? Alex Zanardi picked up his car yesterday, nice guy and he was wearing a HUGE watch, he told us he won it, have a fun weekend".

At the time California Speedway was only 1 year old and a really beautiful facility. Built near an old steel plant that was torn down (and used as a set piece for the filming of Terminator 2).
As we drove closer to the track, we notice a VERY long line of Dodge Viper's driving down the freeway and exiting at the CS exit.
They were all headed to the track and we ended up parking near the So Cal Viper club.
Spent some fun time admiring the cars and talking to the owners.

I already had tickets for the entire weekend and thankfully CART moved the CS date to November as the 1997 race was 100 F plus and held the last weekend of September.
Which was not very pleasant.
This weekend was absolutely beautiful, minimal smog, clear skies and much cooler temperatures making for one great weekend.

We get through the entrance gate, hardly anybody is there but we can hear the Champcars engines running and couple of cars on the track.
We walk in near the grandstand closest to turn #1 and just as we emerge from the entrance area we hear that very distinctive SCREAM of 2 champcar engines running at full tilt. It was Jim Vasser and Scott Pruett practicing.

I thought to myself...........this is going to be fun.

My buddy and I pick a comfortable spot in the grandstand, slap on our headphones so we can hear the drivers and teams talk and proceed to watch the following:

ChampCar Practice and qualifying.
Exciting that day in that Scott Pruett won the pole and I was a big Pruett supporter.
Zanardi and Vasser were at the peak of team power with Ganassi, Max Papis was very dejected over the performance of the Toyota engine in his car.
He was pretty animated and I remember him over the radio telling his crew "this is all the car has".

He finally pitted and using the binoculars I had I watched him as he sat on the pit wall, looking very unhappy.

It was another bad day for Team Penske, Penske in those days use to scramble the team radios, so you could not hear what the team was talking about, but through binoculars, Ribiero and Unser did not look happy.
As it turns out the 1998 California Speedway race was Andre Ribieros last race ever in a champcar. He lasted 6 laps and stuffed it in turn #3.
Team Penske had a miserable car for a couple of seasons and Ribiero absolutely jumped at the chance to race for Penske and the results that Ribeiro thought he was coming to Team Penske for never materialized.
Another irony is that this race also was the very last race for Tasman Motorsports for whom Ribeiro left to race for Penske.
I had watched Ribeiro and Tasman advance from the Indy light series and remember when Ribeiro stuffed the lights car into the turn 2 wall at Phoenix International Raceway, he just lost it.

So at the end of the 1998 season both Ribeiro and Tasman and Zanardi were gone, kind of a sad end to both a good drivers and a good team!

Anyhow, back to our story..................

So Saturday end with final Champ Car qualifying and the IndyLights race. Mike Hotchkis won the race and DaMatta ended up winning the Championship. What had caught me watching the Lights race was HOW CLOSE those cars ran with each other.
Open wheel race cars running nose to tail and side by side, lap after lap and I remember thinking at the time..one day if they keep racing like this there is going to be the BIG ONE and somebody WILL get killed.
It was all just one big pack of cars.
Indy lights running on an oval was all about the draft and having the perfect setup.... beyond that it just took guts and not so much skill to run up front.
Lights on an oval reminded me of an open wheel version of NASCAR, nose to tail, draft, draft, draft and pick your time to make that last pass and run for the checkers.

The 1997 race had a very funny incident, on the back straight a couple of cars got together and crashed. The drivers got out, one driver pushed the other driver and the pushed driver responded by KICKING the other driver. The whole grandstand started laughing that the kicking driver was fighting like a wimp, no punched, only kicking.

During the break between final Champcar qualifying and the Indylights race I glance over to a guy sitting a couple of rows ahead and to the side of me. He looks side to side, takes the top off of his Coke, discreetly pulls a bottle of rum out and makes a cocktail. He saw me staring at him with amusement, we both cracked up, he stirred the drink with his finger, held the cup up as to toast and took a sip, looking satisfied.

I thought this is the life, a day at the races and here this guy is enjoying a cocktail!

I went to the Marlboro trailer and asked the girl working the counter (after buying 3 packs of cigarettes so I could get a Team Penske/Marlboro race hat) if she could teach me how to smoke.....the horrified look on her face was worth the question.

The Lights race ends and listed on the race program was suppose to be a Speedchannel Broadcast of the Formula 1 race from Japan. Hakkinen versus Schumacher. Bring your ticket to the back infield entrance and admission was free.

I had also that year bought tickets to see KISS in concert at Dodger Stadium!

So here we were, a full day of practice, qualifying and one race done, time to catch the F1 championship on TV and then off to Dodger Stadium to see KISS in concert...........in 3D, no less, on Halloween.

My buddy and I head down to the back straight entrance all happy about being able to catch the F1 race, will Hakkinen pull it off over Schumacher (he did, schumacher blew a tire), in the end a security guard would not let us in. He told us our ticket would not get up into the infield.

We took it in stride and just decided to get a bite to eat, clean up and head to Dodger Stadium.

We get to Dodger Stadium and the first thing I notice is that it is VERY FOGGY out. Kind of that heavy dense fog that can hang over Dodger Stadium, it won't block your view but it creates a very weird atmosphere.
The opening act for KISS was a huge circus troupe that did acrobatic tricks and other kind of neat acrobatic work. That was the only time on that tour (Psycho Circus, (get it?), that KISS used a circus act to open for them, it just cost too much to hire that troupe to work night after night.
All the concert goers were dressed in Halloween costumes.

So here we are, full day of racing, Kiss concert, fog overhead, helicopters doing constant flyovers prior to the show and 3D glasses to watch the big screns next to the stage in 3D, that effect did not work so well, it never does.
Best costume of the night, some girl came to the concert in complete body and face paint...................wearing only the very smallest of a thong.

Very LA on Halloween indeed.

Kiss show goes off and we head to the parking lot.
The parking lot looked as if every concert goer had drank a beer and then smashed the bottle on the ground.
Literally, the parking lot was COVERED in glass.

My friend was driving and after trying to leave the parking lot for 45 minutes (the exit traffic was terrible) he tells me...this is BS, I am tired of waiting.
I use to come to baseball games here and there is another exit on the other side of the parking lot.
I doubt it is open because there would be cars lined up there also if it was open, but let's try it anyway.
I told him OK, we have nothing to lose.

So we get out of the exit line, drive the opposite direction and get to the other exit and guess what? That gate was completely open, no traffic.

In less than 5 minutes we went from sitting in a stopped traffic line to being on the freeway.

Bad news was it was very late by this time and we had about a 1 hour drive back to our hotel, I crashed in the car.

Next day we wake up early.....and tired, but so what.

We head to California Speedway.

Beautiful clear and warm day.
Grandstands fill up and the race goes off.

Robby Gordon was doing a one off race that day and Zanardi was also having his last Champcar race before heading to Williams F1.

Herta like the bonehead he is crashes into papis on the restart with 11 laps left, which helped setup the close finish at the end.

Race ends with and absolutely amazingly close 123, vasser, moore, zanardi finish.
Crowd was going crazy!

My buddy and I literally ran down the grandstand steps and to our parked car.
This is still pre 911 airport security back when you could get to an airport 45 minutes before a flight and still make it on and we did just that, got to the airport rental car counter 45 minutes before the flight back home.
After returning the rental car we made it to the gate with 20 minutes to go, got on the flight and made it home.

Those were the day weren't they?

Great weather, crowds, amazing racing and to top it off a KISS concert.

Sadly, those days are all gone now, just a memory BUT I do have all the races on videotape!

Almost forgot. A few days after the race I wrote a letter to Roger Penske at California Speedway, I enclosed photocopies of our race tickets and the program showing the free F1 TV broadcast, I told him a security guard did not let us into the infield to watch the F1 race.
California Speedway gave me free tickets to the 1999 race, which unfortunately was a very sad day for motorsports when Greg Moore was killed.

Anybody have another story?

Let's hear it.

[alonso11]

unfortunately I've never seen a Cart race from tackside so cant really add material to the thread , but it was a good reading, thanks