I was told they have a 5 year contract.

 

I totally agree with the write up. I too think it was not well planned out. It literally took me and my friends 30-45 mins to cross one of the TWO bridges. And damn...I got so stuffed with all the sausages.

YES YES...its their first time, but come on they knew approx. 100k people were going to attend.

But overall, I got my monies worth.

 

I had never seen open wheel cars race like CART/IRL/F1 before. The sound was amazing. I thought for the first year it was pretty good. I do think that they could have done a few things better. Here's my 2 biggest complaints.

1) They need more pedestrian bridges. The bridge over Almaden was a nightmare.

2) The F***ing Cytomax and CHAMP car banners all over the safety fence is crap! Especially when the concrete barriers we plastered with the same advertising. You could not see the action in the corners at all.

Overall I enjoyed myself!

 

A buddy emailed me his .02, too--Hilarious!:

* Pulled into the Fairmont Saturday morning at 8:30, valet parked the pimpin

 

[QUOTE=Nobody,Aug 2 2005, 10:57 AM]


C

 

opps, i was in the luxury box

 

i'll be there again next year volunteering with SCCA, free food, water gets delivered every 10 minutes, free dinner buffet, free passes for 2, and most of all i get to walk around the track, watch the race without bumping into people...

 

I had a blast.

Worst race I've ever been to and I've seen them all over the country. All the reasons stated above (except a good open wheel race is plenty exciting) and you forgot the main bad... what kind of race (other than formula one in '95-2002) does no one ever pass? There were two passes in the pits (Tracy and Wilson) and several due to accidents but that was it.

I had trouble finding anywhere that you could see more than 50' of track much less a corner, no where to sit, couldn't bring in beer or even a chair.

Still... I had a blast. Races are fun. I'll have to think hard about next year though.

 

From what I heard (I was not there) the track (street) was too narrow for cars to pass each other. The other problem is the light rail tracks which crosses the track, it was very bumpy for the cars when they cross the tracks from the summary I saw in the news. The third problem was the track was too short, no place to really accelerate. The fourth problem is the crowd -- just too many people in too small a place.

But this is only the first year, I am sure it will improve over time.

 

I saw 2 completed passes (they looked like they stuck) and 2 other unsucessful attempts at the hairpin. I was standing between the hairpin and chicane watching them go 140-70 then 70-100 then 100-40. I enjoyed it, but also pretty much agree with everything said. I'm sure next year will be better.