Worst Race I Ever Spectated at

"John Norris (AngryDrifter)" (angrydrifter) 10/17/2020 at 17:17 • Filed to: None

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I went to Road Atlanta yesterday for some of the smaller races that led up to Petit Lemans on Saturday. The day concluded with the Fox 120, a two hour race for GT4 and Touring Car classes. Not sure, but I’m guessing somewhere between 1:15 and 1:30 of the 2:00 race was under yellow. Anyway I took some marginal video of the race at the south end of Road Atlanta, out of the esse s, into the two slow turns at the end of the track, and then the first half the back straight.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/17/2020 at 17:40

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So was it the Petit Le Mans that was the worst or the GT4 supporting race? I haven’t been to Road Atlanta but I really want to get up there one of these days for a race.

Pretty  good footage as well. 

smobgirl > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/17/2020 at 17:42

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I watched it on Trackpass. When it was green the racing was phenomenal. Just...a lot wasn’t green. 

CTSenVy > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 10/17/2020 at 17:44

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Petit Le Mans is being ran right now, had to mean the Fox 120 from yesterday.  The Michelin Pilot Series usually runs the day before the big IMSA event.

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 10/17/2020 at 19:11

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Yes, CTSenVy is correct. I just went for the Friday activity. Petit Lemans is today, Saturday.

So it w as a flop for me, as a one dayer. For the people that invested in the weekend I expect they are getting their moneys worth with the big boys today .

Michael > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/17/2020 at 19:22

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Best part of the weekend is the main event, after dark, when the brakes are gl owing and exhaust popping into the hairpin

Poor_Sh > smobgirl 10/17/2020 at 20:53

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Lol yup. Same as i saw and felt

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 10/17/2020 at 22:46

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I’ll add a couple of comments on Road Atlanta, and spectating .

Definitely go visit . Be prepared to walk or rent a golf cart. You specta te mostly   from the interior of the track, and the place is huge. It is fun to explore around. Under a non-COVID footing, pit access is typically great so you can get up next to the cars being worked on in between their races. I chose to go just Friday hoping there would be less people and it would be easier to get around. To my surprise t here were plenty of people there on Friday, although by the looks of one of my fr ie nd’ s facebook live feeds it’s worse today. But be prepared, it’s not just a problem with the track being huge, there are is a lot of elevation change . And seeing a lot of the track needs to be part of your experience. I’ve probably spent 20-25 days there over the last 8 years. This is the first time I got all the way to turns 6&7. You can spend a whole day back and forth between the pits / start line, and the turn 10A 10 B area and completely wear yourself out.

Unfortunately road courses suffer from the fact you can typically only see 10 - 30% of the track at any one spot . So after you r favorite car goe s by they have the other 70-90 % of the track to pass, or be passed, or wreck, that you don’t see. I believe that is the only thing that makes NASCAR oval races more popular. Although there is so much better activity at a road course, you can’t see much. At a NASCAR oval track you can pretty much see most of the track, so you can watch your favorites, or th e leader, or you r nemesis, or see where the wreck is that just impacted the race .

All that video footage I took walking around over 2 hours only covered half the track.; I started on spectator hill by turn 5 and ended up past turn 8, so I only viewed   f rom turn 4 through turn 9 over the 2 hours .

In addition to the race, there is the general car meet like opportunity, just fro m seeing spectators rides. Everyone brings their best race car to come spectate with, and they park them in the infield with you. There might have been hundreds of 911's there brought by spectators. You drive around Atlanta all day and maybe see one or two 911's . I just kept seeing them, of all stripes and eras . It looked like they had a special Porsche parking area by the fan zone area, although I di d not get over there . There was also the here and there Ferrari and Shelby Co bra . So if you wanted to canvas the parking lot at one of these events you could find about any road course performance car you wanted to see. I don’t like the big events with the big crowds, but that is one reason to go to the big event.

There were some serious campers at this event. Some tents, but hundreds of RV’s. If you had three friends with the same automotive interest, renting an RV for the weekend might be a great idea.

Random infield RV parking shot:

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/17/2020 at 22:57

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Thanks for the info. I have only been to one Nascar race and it was a long time ago so I don’t really know what trackside experience is like.

It’s interesting what you mentioned about not being able to see very much of the course at once. So you want to visit spots that has both good visibility and challenging track that will produce interesting results.

From your map, it seems that walking from turn 10 to turn 5 could be pretty interesting. The first 5 corners are pretty undulating and narrow so there’s not as many good overtaking zones with less braking.

I made a very rough loop of this area of Atlanta purely on foot today across around 4 hours so I am no stranger to endless wanderings on foot. Though the elevation changes can probably be killers.

Problem is I don’t know that many people who’d really want to commit to a race weekend. 

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 10/17/2020 at 23:28

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Two issues.

It’s hard to walk from turn to turn. In some spots you have to go toward the interior of the track and out of view of the race track to get to the next turn. The tracks geography and the way they fenced things to control spectators prohibits that.

The other thing is turns 1, 2, and 3 probably have the narrowest fields of view on th e entire track . If you get to where you can see turn 1, I think you can onl y see turn 1. No t the front straight and not really turn 2. I’ve never got to turn 2, but I think it is th e same, maybe you can see turn 1 as well, it is up the hill a bit so you might have a little better view. I’ve been to turn 3, you pretty much just see them after they pop up the hill in to turn 3 and then disappear over the hill to t urn 4. You have to walk a bi t towards turn 4 before you see the esses, then you can see a pretty good stretch of turn 4, the esses, and then up the hill to turn 5. That is pretty much the other end of the view of the first part of my video. Turn 10 has it’s own auditorium, and there is a good view from pretty much anywhere around there, but you can’s see turn 11, and you can’t see before turn 9. The track comes downhill from turn 9, then up hill from 10a 10b and then under the bridge. After the bridge it drops down so you can’t see 10a 10 b and turn 11 at t he same time, it’s one or the other.

Your 4 hour Atlanta walks will prepare you well.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/18/2020 at 00:05

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Yes the hilly geography must make that a challenge. It may obscure some sight lines but it does make for some spectacular sights as the cars crest the hills. And the long downhill braking zone into 10 a and b wouldn’t be the same on a flat track. Road Atlanta is one I definitely want to actually get out and experience.

So is there nowhere you can see both turn 10 and 11? Because those are two very interesting corners on the track. 

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 10/18/2020 at 00:36

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Nowhere.

You could see them both from th e bridge, as it is the high point. B ut they block the view from the bridge with 7 foot hi gh fences on ether side. I’m sure if they didn’t block the view they would have crowd control problems with everyone camping out on the bridge.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/18/2020 at 11:34

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Well that makes sense because a bridge over the track isn’t a place you want massive crowds. I think that’s pretty standard practice to not allow spectating from the bridges based on my long Forza career.

So how does the ticketing work? You seemed to indicate it is one price for weekend access.