One Year Later: Circuit of the America's Edition

"Jonathon Klein" (jonathon-klein)
11/11/2014 at 10:05 • Filed to: Formula 1, Circuit of the America's, Auto Journo

Last year I began a journey, and at the time, I didn't even know I was starting one. I had no idea how just a single year could change my life so much for the better.

You see, last year I went to my first Formula 1 race. My wife knew I loved F1 and surprised me with the whole thing on our anniversary. The race was loud as all hell; we sort of lost all of our money, and had a lovely experience with bugs coming out of our hotel's towels. Nevertheless, I never could have speculated that I would write an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! detailing our experience that would lead me to writing about cars fulltime, and now a full year later I still can't believe it. This is the difference a year can make.

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( Full Disclosure : I was so psyched to come back to COTA this year with my wife. We bought our tickets about two weeks after we got back from the first race. They took our money for tickets, parking, food, hats, shirts, and a few other things that totaled much more money than we probably actually have. But it was still worth it. )

Two weeks before the race I was called into my boss's office. She told me that I had enough marks against me to be fired and that my trip to COTA was effectively cancelled even though I never was late, and only used my PTO when taking time off. A week later, I was called in again for spending too much time on the internet and that I no longer had any internet privileges. At this point, I was doing double duty, writing and the day job all at once, so that last one may have been accurate.

( They will not deny me this! )

One day after I got my internet rights revoked, I received a letter from my higher up regional boss thanking me for all the unbelievable hard work and extra time I had spent doing a very important job for her and that I'm due a raise. Really? I'd had enough of this bipolar environment, and said fuck it and promptly quit. I was already making enough writing to say goodbye, I was just too scared to pull the trigger until then. I gave them a weeks' notice and booked it.

( This is how I wanted to quit )

The Trip

(Snacks for the road)

This year, we didn't fly, I figured I'd get a better article if we drove my FR-S all the way to Austin. No stops. No layovers to sleep. Just 16 hours of driving straight through the night all done by me, since I've been lax in resuming teaching Alli how to drive stick.

I'll tell you right off the bat, it was the dumbest idea I've ever had, and I once jousted with a set of bamboo poles, BMX bikes, and hockey gear.

At 7 o'clock pm we left and hit the highway. We immediately encountered traffic near O'Hare airport.

( Probably because people had the good sense to fly to Austin instead of driving like us schmucks. )

I had already been up for 18 hours, writing, taking care of the dogs, so traffic was not a welcome sight.

Driving down to Austin was boring, it was just me doing 85mph most of the way there and not much else. Besides the one instance just before crossing the Illinois state line when an unmarked, non-MP plated cop car flashed his lights and mouthed slow down to me. Other than that, nothing remarkable happened. Although the roads in Austin, and really all of Texas are still like a Hot Wheels set.

The Hotel

( At this point I just wanted to die )

This year, we had learned our lesson and got a nice hotel. No bugs. No weird stains. No broken doors from when the cops most likely busted a meth lab in the room. Obviously though, nothing could go completely right as planned with the hotel still kind of screwing us over by charging my card 4 separate times that wasted away my bank account to nothing. Oh yeah, and the hotel's hairdryer actually catching on fire in Alli's hands, that was totally fun! Thankfully, the card issues were fixed a few days ago.

The Parking Lot

( Did Doug find a friend? )

When we finally got to the track, the parking lot once again did not disappoint. There was a wonderfully blue V8 Vantage, a V12 Vantage, a Citroen DS, Land Rover Defender 4 door, a 360 parked next to a 458, 911 GT2, BMW X6M, Merc SLS, a Hennessey CTS-V, a few NSX's, a GT3 RS 4.0, a couple McLarens, and of course another SEAT. It was a wonderful conglomeration of supercars and things we don't get, coming in from Mexico.

The Race

( Cute Grid girl! )

One negative about the weekend though was the sound of the Formula 1 cars. Last year I described the experience as going to a church of noise. When one of those V8's went screaming by, it not only hurt your ears, it resounded in your chest. It was heaven, and you could hear them going around from the parking lot a mile away from the circuit's entrance.

This year however, I held a half hour conversation with a couple doctors during FP2, and never once did I raise my voice. I thought I'd be ok with the new sound, but it's just not the same. No matter what anyone tells you, noise is an integral part of the racing experience, even Formula E knows that which is why they made the electric engines louder.

I'm fine with innovation, but the strategy laid out by the FiA won't lead to innovation. It will lead to stagnation. This picture is from the current Racer Magazine and details the design freeze that's set to take F1.

And here's how IndyCar's people feel about it.

The engine freezes and rules need to be lifted immediately, at least for the sports sake. The racing is amazing, but it doesn't pull you in with that emotional component anymore. That came from the noise, which is no longer there.

The race by itself was really a hot one, and I loved seeing Ricciardo on the podium. I wish he would have won, but the Mercedes ( to my wife's glee ) are completely dominant this year and no one really has a prayer unless they both crash each other out during the race.

This year, COTA allowed the track rush, which is like New Years Eve in Rome. Imagine thousands of people pushing and trampling through you just to get to the podium. It was a bit dicey for a second and I did have to elbow a few people that were pushing me down into my wife, but we made it safely to the podium.

Where we saw not only the drivers and team managers, but also Ralph Giles who nobody knew, Magnus Walker who nobody knew, Damen Hill who nobody knew, Sir Jackie Stewart who people kind of knew, and Rick Perry who everyone knew and booed!

The Town

( This is Fluffy, the destroyer of worlds....and tires )

This year we skipped the whole FanZone, which was very much smaller than last year, and went to the Jalopnik party and had a wonderful time. We met a few readers, and I was able to meet and thank Mr. Patrick George! I actually made it a mission to meet Patrick this year since he was the one that promoted my first article to the front page. I needed desperately to thank him for all that he has done.

We had fun talking, drinking, and jealously listening to Rob Holland the racecar driver, who lives at the Nurburgring.

We also met a Puffalump, oh and her owner Stef was there too! Who turned out to then drive us back to our car that was in the center of downtown Austin. Stef also works as an Uber driver, so when you're down in Austin, you can have a Jalop drive you to wherever you want to go. Although at this point of the night, she was wearing a horse head so you might want to reconsider?

Recap

( Rudy's and Torchy's Taco's, yum )

While I didn't get a chance to meet another Formula 1 driver this year, I had just as much fun. The race was awesome, the drive was ridiculous ( I made it home in 15hrs coming back ), and the company throughout the race was the best I could ever hope for.

Additionally, there are really two people I need to thank for this experience, first off is my wife Alli. Thank you for everything you've pushed me to do, you've been my inspiration and have constantly encouraged me to do something I love. I won't ever be able to repay you, but I will try for the rest of my life.

And secondly, to Patrick and the entire Jalopnik crew, if you wouldn't have promoted that article a year ago, I would have still been miserable and stuck in a cube, rather than having a brand new press car sitting in my driveway right now and doing something I am truly passionate about.

Thank you both for everything you've done and helped me accomplish. Man, I can't wait to see what this next year brings, but first I need to finalize the details for me heading to the LA Auto Show as an actual Auto Journalist!

You can follow my exploits here on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and here on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

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DISCUSSION (8)

SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 10:34

Superb story!

I did the WEC race in September. A less crowded COTA made for superb times

EL_ULY > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 10:49

Awesome read! I have done WEC and F1 back to back. I didn't have the adventure like you mostly because I worked that whole weekend up until race day. The track is also just 2 and a half hours from me but the energy of the place was felt most definitely.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 11:20

Wow - congrats on following your passion!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 11:23

Word.

Very glad that I got to feel the V8s in person in 2012 - bummed that my wife's first live exposure to F1 was "muted". She still had a great time.

Grindintosecond > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 11:50

Turning a passion to income is awesome. Congrats. Questions about that if I may:

What volume of output do you have to maintain? How often are you trying to scrounge up a new press car or a new topic someone else hasn't published on? (I read somewhere else you work with IBpublishing, hence the question about activity) It would be interesting to see what an auto journo's daily routine is like and how much of a job (9-5 work) or lifestyle (real estate life) it is, especially since you're an "independant" contributor. Thank you.

Great work. I like what you write. I hope I can figure out how to clean up my own writing and also find some opportunities in the future. Now I know what you look like, I'll look for you on the next flights I work to Austin during race weekend.

Jonathon Klein > Grindintosecond
11/11/2014 at 12:03

The answer, a lot of output. I'm currently contributing to at least 5 separate publications. Mostly through IBpublishing, but also TST, Jalop, BoldRide, and a few others. I'd say I'm averaging around 120 articles a month.

Last night, which is a usual night, I didn't finish till 8pm and I started at 8am. I'm also getting into video content as well as the writing content which adds a whole other part to my day.

It's way harder than you think. When just doing it on the side, I had some time because I didn't need to worry about income. Now it's all on this, and while I'm not worried, I don't have time to slack off. But I love what I do now.

Wrangling Press cars is a bit of an ordeal in regards to the fact you have to be ok'd by the manufacturer. Something that's going real slowly for me. I've only been ok'd by chrysler, Volvo, and with GM giving me a tentative ok.

You'll find story's just sometimes come to you, and then there are those things that you have to seek out, like the shop tour of AMS I did that should be out soon.

Did that answer everything?

Grindintosecond > Jonathon Klein
11/11/2014 at 12:33

It did and then some. Thank you VERY much.

I was wondering about the output math. I looked about and found $20+ per article over at IB was normal for about half a thousand words. 120 articles a month sounds about right. That's 6 a day doing it 5 days a week. Some folks don't get it. Work is work . the only other consideration is about how much room there is in this internet/magazine world for independent writers. I suppose niche carving also becomes a consideration.

My father is a news journalist/historian. 40+ years. This meant endless writing at work and home. The manual Royal typewriter at home became a gatling gun fighting the TV us kids watched. The resultant Popeye forearms destroyed computer keyboards when they showed up. He doesn't go looking for national publication, but hes always busy discovering new things to learn and write. Constant brief article writing can only improve real writing and editing skill, showing more possibilities in the future. Books, etc.

Good luck and thank you for illuminating the inside indie world.

Stef Schrader > Grindintosecond
11/11/2014 at 12:47

Heh, the Uber thing was just a promo for a local trackday group. No strangers allowed in the Lulzcer, haha.