| Re: CORVETTE RACING AT LONG BEACH: SPOILER ALERT |
Subject: Re: CORVETTE RACING AT LONG BEACH: SPOILER ALERT by bogus on 2017/4/12 14:34:11 We went on Friday. I really do like LB from a fan perspective... Oh, Saturday was sold out for the Corral!!!! Sold out sometime in December or January!!! There are only 100 car slots available, IIRC. Ok, back to my first thought... The Corral has the BEST PARKING for the GP. PERIOD. It's in the marina, which is beach side. When entering, you drive past the track to the west-ish/south-ish, make a right and head down Shore Line (I think), then make a left and head down the hill to the beach and off road for 200 yards or so. As you get back onto the parking roads, there is a quick left and right and you are in the Corral!!! It's right by the start finish line. Thanks to an areal shot, I could clearly see the Corral and it was PACKED on Saturday. The entire showing for fans was great on Saturday. ALMS also drew very well... as CART was fading, I firmly believe that the ALMS kept this race relevant to the fan base. On Friday, we got to hear from Doug Fehan. He is always a great speaker. It was funny... I was parking the C4 and bastet44 was already in the tent... he asked 'who all was at Sebring?'... yup, we were the only ones in the Corral who were also at Sebring! No surprises there. A great memory from a couple years back... Kirk Bennion and Harlan Charles were doing the circuit after the announcement of the C7. Harlan was doing the Q/A part and I had a Qx... I had my hand up and he was answering another question, he pause and said "hang on Andy, your next" or something to that effect. Cool, no biggie... But the eyes... I swear, everyone within 20 ft of me was looking at me with the same 'Who is this dude and how does he know Harlan by name like this?'. Most folks on the west coast only know Harlan by reputation and not personally. It's sad, cause Harlan is such a great guy! And so is Kirk. At the same race, I had seen Kirk at the Peterson reveal party and 60th Anniversary of the Corvette. I have a ton of pics from that event (I am sure I posted a few here), most were of Kirk, but that's cause I was trying to get pics of his powerpoint presentation! However, at the GP, I introduced myself. Told him I wanted to meet/great at the Peterson, but he was getting swamped, and I really needed to talk to Mike Yager... But the funny part... I mentioned my name, and he said "I know your name". I was shocked, I then said,"it must be Harlan wondering the halls cussing me or something!". He replied, "no, that's not it!" I then said I had done some writing for the old Corvette Enthusiast magazine. "That's it! I read all the Vette mags! OMG. Kirk knew who I was. <sniff>. And lest we never forget - I won the Ron Fellows Driving School at LB last year!!!!! That was EPIC... and the biggest reason why I have a C6 now... it woke me up to how tired my poor C4 was. So yes, GPLB is great. On negative... taking pics is impossible. There are sooo many fences... and the views suck. I think next year, I am going to spend the $$ and get the photo circuit ticket. It's $250 and do it once every 5-8 years, just to get a nice sampling of photos for now and the future. |
