Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 Race Track

[turn1]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

I think the Ferrari issue was tire warming related. I think they cut downforce to increase straightline speed (due to the engine issue) which caused there to be no heat in the tires for several laps which lead to understeer.

It's also very likely a massive contributing factor to why the suspension broke over the bumps. I think the bumps + lower downforce exacerbated the problems with the bumps for the Ferrari's. The team specifically told Charles to avoid 2 sections of the track over the radio where other teams were not as concerned about hitting the Apex in 9.

As far as parking, I had a friend in the cash lot across Elroy Road who got out in about 45 minutes. Just had a 20 minute walk and then 25 minutes stuck in traffic because they walked past the real traffic jam. So lesson learned - don't buy the really expensive Lot F parking, just park a 20 minute walk away and walk past the jam up to the exit of the venue.

Yeah there are several good parking options offered by locals out there. Just be careful walking. An F1 fan was struck and killed walking back to his car after the GP. I'd always rather walk 15 minutes back to my car than sit the same 15 minutes or much more in traffic. At DKR I always see all the people stuck in traffic close-in after. When I get to my car, I'm outta there.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by turn1

Loved your NASCAR post too. I'm guessing we're about the same age. Sprint Car racing and then NASCAR are what led me to being a huge motorsport fan in general, esp F1. Not into NASCAR anymore, for much the same reasons you described. Still into Sprint Cars though. Maybe the best racing on the planet.

Spent almost every Saturday night watching Sprint or Super Mods at a local half mile dirt track sitting on the hood of my '78 Z28 at the drive up section of the track, eating funnel cakes and drinking beer. I agree, loud, fast, exciting racing. My wife's cousin drives a Super Mod in NY. My Z28 was new btw which should indicate my age somewhat. I also attended races at the Longhorn Speedway near Bergstrom AFB to watch stock cars race on a quarter mile paved track just because I lived a couple of miles away from it. Anyone remember that place?? We once had stock car racing in Austin, albeit at a shitty little track. The other much better place to watch stock car racing was at a track near Bryan, TX. My family got together every year to watch what was then a tape delay of the Indy 500, so I was just a kid when I became a racing fan. It took me a while to get into NASCAR. I was a big Rick Mears fan as well as Andretti. Lets not forget, Sneva, Danny Sullivan, Rutherford, Rahal, Unser, Johncock, Cogan, Foyt, Pruett, to name a few. Again, each of those drivers and more were followed by die hard Indy Car fans like I was because of the attitude and personality they brought to the sport. And I knew most of the drivers by name and sponsor. Now as in NASCAR, I don't know hardly any of the drivers and I'm not one to root for a driver just because they are American. Indy racing does have fundamental issues when there was a split, Indy VS Cart. But to top the list of the diluted fan base between the two was name recognition, or more accurately, lack of. Also, short track ovals are quit boring with Indy cars. Apparently no one really gives a shit about Indy anymore or the foreign drivers who dominate the sport save for the Indy 500 where fans will travel to the US for that one race, and as proof based on the dismal attendance at the COTA race. Adding COTA to their schedule was a popular move among the drivers who wanted to race on a world class F1 circuit. Promotion may have played a role in the attendance fail, but it really boils down to the lack of interest and connection between US fans and whoever the heck is driving those cars. Once the novelty wears off, I'd say they will only be around 3 -5 years unless there is a major uptick in local and US interest in the COTA race and Indy racing in general. That all being said, with the exception of F1, for some reason, the lessening interest in major motor sports is evolutionary. God, can't believe I'm saying this...but back in my day, we had a plethora of entertainment options that did not include cell phone, YouTube, Google, Social Media, whatever, so we did a bunch of outdoor activities which included Motor Sports. So in part I blame the gut punch to attendance and popularity of NASCAR, Indy, and to a much lesser extent F1 to cell phones, the internet, and Social Media. Even I have succumbed to these evils by evidence of the amount of time I spend on this forum. I haven't had a tan in years

[turn1]

Originally Posted by the Genral

Spent almost every Saturday night watching Sprint or Super Mods at a local half mile dirt track sitting on the hood of my '78 Z28 at the drive up section of the track, eating funnel cakes and drinking beer. I agree, loud, fast, exciting racing. My wife's cousin drives a Super Mod in NY. My Z28 was new btw which should indicate my age somewhat. I also attended races at the Longhorn Speedway near Bergstrom AFB to watch stock cars race on a quarter mile paved track just because I lived a couple of miles away from it. Anyone remember that place?? We once had stock car racing in Austin, albeit at a shitty little track. The other much better place to watch stock car racing was at a track near Bryan, TX. My family got together every year to watch what was then a tape delay of the Indy 500, so I was just a kid when I became a racing fan. It took me a while to get into NASCAR. I was a big Rick Mears fan as well as Andretti. Lets not forget, Sneva, Danny Sullivan, Rutherford, Rahal, Unser, Johncock, Cogan, Foyt, Pruett, to name a few. Again, each of those drivers and more were followed by die hard Indy Car fans like I was because of the attitude and personality they brought to the sport. And I knew most of the drivers by name and sponsor. Now as in NASCAR, I don't know hardly any of the drivers and I'm not one to root for a driver just because they are American. Indy racing does have fundamental issues when there was a split, Indy VS Cart. But to top the list of the diluted fan base between the two was name recognition, or more accurately, lack of. Also, short track ovals are quit boring with Indy cars. Apparently no one really gives a shit about Indy anymore or the foreign drivers who dominate the sport save for the Indy 500 where fans will travel to the US for that one race, and as proof based on the dismal attendance at the COTA race. Adding COTA to their schedule was a popular move among the drivers who wanted to race on a world class F1 circuit. Promotion may have played a role in the attendance fail, but it really boils down to the lack of interest and connection between US fans and whoever the heck is driving those cars. Once the novelty wears off, I'd say they will only be around 3 -5 years unless there is a major uptick in local and US interest in the COTA race and Indy racing in general. That all being said, with the exception of F1, for some reason, the lessening interest in major motor sports is evolutionary. God, can't believe I'm saying this...but back in my day, we had a plethora of entertainment options that did not include cell phone, YouTube, Google, Social Media, whatever, so we did a bunch of outdoor activities which included Motor Sports. So in part I blame the gut punch to attendance and popularity of NASCAR, Indy, and to a much lesser extent F1 to cell phones, the internet, and Social Media. Even I have succumbed to these evils by evidence of the amount of time I spend on this forum. I haven't had a tan in years

Yep. Good post.

Random reactions:
-Smartphones are to today's kids what cars were to us.
- Longhorn Speedway is still there. It's just mostly grown over. Sandra Bullock bought it for Jesse James before they split. Dunno if either of them still owns it.
- The IndyCar crowd really was abysmal. I can't imagine they'll be here long.
- My racing addiction started when my Dad took me to Riverside Speedway in West Memphis when I was 5. We would watch a very young Sammy Swindell, Hooker Hood, and Alvin Gatlin until he was killed in a crash right in front of me. That led to NASCAR and Indy/ChampCar/CART, & those led to F1/WEC/ALMS/WRC/Dakar/Baja, etc. Finally got to go to the 500 this May. Amazing event, and amazingly well-run.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by turn1

Yep. Good post.

Random reactions:
-Smartphones are to today's kids what cars were to us.
- Longhorn Speedway is still there. It's just mostly grown over. Sandra Bullock bought it for Jesse James before they split. Dunno if either of them still owns it.
- The IndyCar crowd really was abysmal. I can't imagine they'll be here long.
- My racing addiction started when my Dad took me to Riverside Speedway in West Memphis when I was 5. We would watch a very young Sammy Swindell, Hooker Hood, and Alvin Gatlin until he was killed in a crash right in front of me. That led to NASCAR and Indy/ChampCar/CART, & those led to F1/WEC/ALMS/WRC/Dakar/Baja, etc. Finally got to go to the 500 this May. Amazing event, and amazingly well-run.

Apologies to those who don't care about these off topic posts. Turn1, check out the web site for the Middletown Speedway. They're still racing there Saturday nights. It was 1/2 hour from my house. It may not look like much, but it made for a great date night. Saw a driver flip and go right through one of the billboards and ended up outside the track confines. He survived though badly injured. Those dirt short tracks and the powerful cars made those races quite thrilling and somewhat dangerous. I forgot to mention 20 -30 years ago, we did go to the races to see the crashes as long as no one died from it. Not so much of a common theme these days considering the safer cars and tracks. I believe there was a time when Petty, Yarborough, and Baker drove with only a lap belt. This kind of got me thinking about a few things that would be cool add ons at Cota, drag strip, 1/2 mile paved and / or 1/2 mile
dirt oval. I also seem to remember that the COTA circuit could be reconfigured to run shorter laps, bypassing most of the eastern portion of the track. I think that reconfiguration was used at least once, with the Aussie race I believe. Are there any events that you know of that use it? I think a Midget series would be fun to watch on it. It might only attract a few thousand people at best, but it could be combined with a soccer game or concert.

[freerover]

Have you guys done karting at driveway austin on east 183? The karts are pretty serious and it's a fun track.

[turn1]

Originally Posted by the Genral

Apologies to those who don't care about these off topic posts. Turn1, check out the web site for the Middletown Speedway. They're still racing there Saturday nights. It was 1/2 hour from my house. It may not look like much, but it made for a great date night. Saw a driver flip and go right through one of the billboards and ended up outside the track confines. He survived though badly injured. Those dirt short tracks and the powerful cars made those races quite thrilling and somewhat dangerous. I forgot to mention 20 -30 years ago, we did go to the races to see the crashes as long as no one died from it. Not so much of a common theme these days considering the safer cars and tracks. I believe there was a time when Petty, Yarborough, and Baker drove with only a lap belt. This kind of got me thinking about a few things that would be cool add ons at Cota, drag strip, 1/2 mile paved and / or 1/2 mile
dirt oval. I also seem to remember that the COTA circuit could be reconfigured to run shorter laps, bypassing most of the eastern portion of the track. I think that reconfiguration was used at least once, with the Aussie race I believe. Are there any events that you know of that use it? I think a Midget series would be fun to watch on it. It might only attract a few thousand people at best, but it could be combined with a soccer game or concert.

Yep they used the short course for V8SC and I think they considered it for IndyCar, but chose the full circuit. They do use it at times for driver academies with AMG, Cadillac, etc. And yeah, apologies for going a bit o/t!

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by freerover

Have you guys done karting at driveway austin on east 183? The karts are pretty serious and it's a fun track.

I didn't know we had that. Its probably better and cheaper than COTA's. I'm going to research it in a bit.

[turn1]

Originally Posted by freerover

Have you guys done karting at driveway austin on east 183? The karts are pretty serious and it's a fun track.

Yep I've been to Driveway a few times, and COTA Karting a couple of times. For those who haven't been to one or the other, COTA's a little more expensive than Driveway iirc, esp when you get multiple races. COTA is more technical and you run for time rather than directly racing each other. At Driveway, it's a faster, generally less technical circuit, and you race each other, starting from a standing start. In my experience, the participants at Driveway have been much more experienced at racing wheel to wheel and running good lap times, making for less disparity on the track and more, better position battles. I think I generally have more fun at Driveway, but they both have their good qualities.

Oh, and Bill & Scott Dollahite, their family & the rest of the Driveway crew are just great to interact with. Once my wife and I were at Driveway doing a bit of racing while my two boys watched. Bill came over and asked if we'd like to go for a run in one of his training cars. He took us on the full circuit, across the inverted corkscrew replica, around the rest of the circuit to the start line, then stopped. Then he went backward up to about 60 mph and did a j-turn like you always see in chase scenes. The family absolutely loved it.

The karts at both are single-speed karts that are advertised to hit about 55 mph. Also at Driveway a lot of times they'll use weights on the karts to make for more even racing among the different 'weight classes'.

[turn1]

More on the upcoming repairs...

Austin will close over winter to fix bumps https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14...r-to-fix-bumps

"We're actually closing the track for most of December and half of January to fix the problems.

"We did some of the repairs last year before MotoGP, so I wouldn't say we'd have to do the whole thing.

"Certainly it will involve the entire back straight, the pit out and part of Turn 1, there's a part of a hump before Turn 9, Turns 18-19. So it's pretty extensive.

"I know what the bill is!"

The undulations also caused problems for MotoGP riders when they visited the Texas venue in April.

Epstein explained that the problems can be traced to a flood when the track was being laid in 2015, which consequently led to a number of issues.

Re: the 2015 storms that Epstein blames the problems on in the article, they did seem to exacerbate the issues and accelerate the problem, but the track was already getting bumpy before that.

He mentions having done "some of the repairs" already. That's Turn 10, which was done over the winter after Rossi's test where he repeatedly almost binned it there. He also mentions "part of a hump before T9", which is probably actually the big hump before T11. Or I guess he could mean the nasty hump/bump/jump (depending on which driver description you choose) after T9, the one that Vettel broke his car on. The run up from 7 to 9 is pretty smooth.


Re: the scope of the job, he says they're doing 40% of the circuit - " the entire back straight, the pit out and part of Turn 1, there's a part of a hump before Turn 9, Turns 18-19" - and nothing between T1 and T9, a stretch which needs it badly, so it seems like the focus is on the underlying structures and they'll only be resurfacing the circuit in areas where it's necessitated by those repairs. He says they're closing the circuit "most of December and half of January", which doesn't seem like a long time for major repairs.

After the 2015 storms, according to an engineer who worked on the initial construction, the worst damage was in areas where the water crossed the track - tunnels and huge water drainage mains - and the damage was only superficially repaired & thus became a bigger issue later.

[turn1]

Bobby Epstein gives Stephen Ross a public COTA sales pitch...

http://www.pitpass.com/66181/Parking...arns-COTA-boss

Epstein believes that if Ross is genuinely keen to be involved and promote a race in America, he would be best served by looking at COTA.

"He could own this track, the greatest modern track in the world, I think he'd love it," he said. "If he's really keen on having a Formula One race, he should buy the best track. Then he'd have the best circuit in the world and no uphill battles... a built-in successful audience.

"The struggle you go through to complete something like (Miami), the hurdle is very high. It's a painful battle sometimes.

"Money would be much better spent here. This was half a billion dollars investment... you could probably buy at a great discount.

"Beyond it the land around the track is prime for development, I think he's a fantastic real-estate developer so to me he'd be the likely partner, not for the race around the Hard Rock Stadium but here. I think it would cost him less than he would lose doing the race around the Hard Rock Stadium.

"Between what it would cost annually and the difficulties there would be to sustain a race there and the fact he has a lot deeper pockets than ours, maybe this should be his."

[StoOgE]

That's.... Weird

[The ATX]

So COTA is for sale...

[Jdawgboy]

Oh please let this happen! He needs to sell it to someone who will actually do what is needed.

[turn1]

Yeah it was weird, and yeah, it's been for sale for a while. Supposedly Penske kicked the tires years ago, and there was a group out of Florida iirc in 2015-16 (not Ross or NASCAR) that thought about it as well, but eventually declined. A while back Epstein said F1 should own some tracks and offered up COTA then as well ... at the right price. The trick is getting someone to pay what they need for the place ...

ETA: Just remembered .. the group out of Florida was IRG, the drag strip people. That, too, was a weird deal. COTA even hired on IRG CEO Jason Rittenberry for a while as COTA's "Chief Strategy Officer" and then dropped him a year later - probably about the time he decided not to purchase the track.

[hookem]

Originally Posted by turn1

Yeah it was weird, and yeah, it's been for sale for a while. Supposedly Penske kicked the tires years ago, and there was a group out of Florida iirc (not Ross or NASCAR) that thought about it as well, but eventually declined. A while back Epstein said F1 should own some tracks and offered up COTA then as well ... at the right price. Getting someone to pay what they need for it is the trick...

I agree it is weird. It has been at least a couple of years that we've known it's up for sale, but this particular statement would seem to be kind of desperate (about selling it at a discount)... and kind of futile (clearly F1 wants a race somewhere else, and I don't think Stephen Ross wants an F1 race as much as he wants to own another Miami pro sports thing)...

I'm almost thinking it's a ploy to support the neighborhood opposition. They can use that as ammunition against any public subsidies -- why should the taxpayers pay for Ross to have an F1 race in their neighborhood, when he could get one at a discount in Austin?

[turn1]

Originally Posted by hookem

I agree it is weird. It has been at least a couple of years that we've known it's up for sale, but this particular statement would seem to be kind of desperate (about selling it at a discount)... and kind of futile (clearly F1 wants a race somewhere else, and I don't think Stephen Ross wants an F1 race as much as he wants to own another Miami pro sports thing)...

I'm almost thinking it's a ploy to support the neighborhood opposition. They can use that as ammunition against any public subsidies -- why should the taxpayers pay for Ross to have an F1 race in their neighborhood, when he could get one at a discount in Austin?

Yep. And maybe Texas politicians should be asking the same question, just reversed: "Why should the State pay $25M for COTA to have an F1 race, when F1's giving Florida a GP for free?"

[turn1]

WEC Race At Interlagos Cancelled, CoTA Replaces Brazil

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/1...es-brazil.html

[We vs us]

Hard to tell from that article -- does this look like a permanent add to the COTA schedule? Or a one-off because Brazil wasn't ready . . .?

[turn1]

Originally Posted by We vs us

Hard to tell from that article -- does this look like a permanent add to the COTA schedule? Or a one-off because Brazil wasn't ready . . .?

Yeah I can't tell either for sure. I can't imagine that two U.S. dates is what they're really shooting for though.

[turn1]

No COTA for 2020-21 season ...

Monza, Kyalami join WEC calendar for 2020/21 https://racer.com/2019/12/12/monza-k...r-for-2020-21/