A Saturday at Elroy

"DannyCatSteve" (dannycatsteve) 11/17/2013 at 23:41 • Filed to: Formula 1 COTA

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For the third time this year, I ventured to Circuit of the Americas for a race weekend. This time however, it was only for Saturday qualifying for the U.S. Grand Prix.

I started the day after my 18th birthday by awaking at 5 a.m., as we would depart for COTA at 6:30. We arrived via shuttle to the track at around 8 a.m., and being this was, my friend, Aaron's first time to the track I decided to explore it with him for a bit before we decided on turn one to observe free practice three from.

We were near turn three at the start of FP3 and heard the first car out, the Lotus E21 of Heikki Kovaleinen, approach. Heikki flew past us at a spellbinding speed and the sound of the 2.4L V8 Renault engine drowned out all other noise. Seeing and hearing a Grand Prix car in anger for the first time is the most amazing rush I have ever experienced.

We quickly moved to turn one, spending the rest of practice viewing the cars retarding from 300 kph in 7th gear to 100 in 2nd for the hairpin. Under cloud cover, I exercised my amature photography skills, and no differently than my other adventures in Elroy, most of them were bad. This time, I'd like to think that the fencing in the way was the main issue (it really wasn't; I'm terrible at taking photos of cars in action). FP3 ended with a massive lock up from one of the Force India's and Sebastian Vettel unsurprisingly on top.

The esses was selected as our viewing point for qualifying. There were many chants of "GO NICO (Hulkenberg)," as he once again made Q3 with an impressive result of 4th. Valtteri Bottas also had a strong result, placing his Williams 9th on the grid. I continued being good at taking poor photos, while Sebastian Vettel put in a great lap in the dying seconds to claim pole over Red Bull teammate Mark Webber.

With qualifying run, it was autograph/driver Q & A time so we made our way through the crowd to the amphitheater stage. On the way we purchased curly fries for the "cheap" price of $20, before the Williams drivers came out to be interviewed by someone who was in a cowboy hat. Both Valtteri and Pastor Maldonado were then given the opportunity to rope an innanimate bull, because stereotypes are fun. BOTTAS manged to hook one of its horns and Pastor was unsuccesful, probably due to Williams tampering with his rope.

Finally discovering how Formula One autograph sessions worked, we got in the Toro Rosso line, which would be going at the same time as Ferrari. As it was about time for Ferrari to come out, a man wearing a Lotus shirt began negotiating with those in the Ferrari line to have his custom made Alonso shoes signed by Fernando himself. A Spanish speaking man offered, but asked for money in return. "Alonso shoe guy" as we will call him, started with a generous $10.

The Spanish speaking man wanted more, and so the price was then raised to $20, then $30, and finally ending at $50. This still wasn't enough however; he wanted it all the money up front, which "Alonso shoe guy" was hesitant to do because there was no gurantee he would actually get them signed. Alonso came out to massive applause and cheers from the crowd, and "shoe guy" finally decided to pay all the money up front.

He called me over with $50 in the shoe to give to the man along with instructions. I handed them over, hoping the Spanish speaking Ferrari supporter would keep his word. STR came out, meaning it was our turn to go on stage. Aaron sneaked into the Ferrari line and I continued to Toro Rosso. Their signatures would suffice for me; Jean-Eric Vergne signed on Elroy Road of the COTA map, and Daniel Ricciardo gave me his carachteristic big smile. I emerged on the other side of the stage and saw "Alonso shoe guy" get what he so desperately wanted, which made me happy.

With the Ferrari Challenge and Vintage races run, it was time to return home. It had been a relatively short visit when compared to my other two COTA adventures, but it was still a wonderful experience and incredible fun. I am keen on finally going all three days for next year's event.

Thanks again for reading my terrible writing. Until next time!