Saturday Morning Autopilot Rambling

It’s Saturday morning. The countdown has started for the race. As of typing this, there is still a brain numbing 9.5 hours until the race starts. I guess maybe Long Beach can be considered an endurance event afterall.

So what does the typical day consist of at Long Beach. Being a creature of habit (mostly bad) it means waking up at the same hotel, year in, year out, grabbing a dung muffin and shuffling off to the car for the drive to Long Beach. The scenery is stunning. Oil refineries on one side of the road and shipping cranes on the other. Isn’t nature wonderful?

Upon arrival at the track it’s the usual death march to the media center, to be greeted with a friendly “you can’t sit in there” from the same person every year. “But I’m media.” “Go talk to …” Upon walking to the magic door you are greeted by a plastic smile girl who slithers off to talk to “the boss”, probably in some secret code so us “media types” can’t understand. Whatever they say, it’s likely some code for “look at that dweeb. He wants media access again. Doesn’t he know he is a sportscar type person? He should be out drinking tequila and eating some Yancey’s Fancy.”

After that dance is completed, you find yourself in the same corner of the same room that you’ve been coming to for what is it, 4 years now? It’s almost like it’s autopilot… Then there is the walk to pit lane, where the maze gets weirder and weirder every year. No matter how much I try, I can’t find that elusive bit of cheese at the end of the maze. Then it’s the walk back to the media dungeon where you try to gather your thoughts, amongst meeting up with the usual suspects.

Always something to look forward to is the annual catching up with Jack Gerken, ex-Saleen, ex-Pirelli, now working with Brembo brakes. The visit with Jack itself is worth the trip.

It’s now Saturday morning and there is noise on track. It’s the World Challenge cars that are assigned with the task of cleaning the track this morning. They get their allocated 30 minutes of track time today very early. What do they do the rest of the day?

Anyway, it’s autopilot, Saturday morning style, minus the typically meaningless morning warm up. Time to catch up on what’s been going on… A positive for the ALMS has been the presence of fans in the seats when the cars have been on track, despite the schedule. There are people out there that want to see the ALMS cars on track – I’m expecting the afternoon autograph session to be a zoo in the already crowded paddock.

Bryce Miller has committed to the remainder of the season in the GTC class with Orbit Racing, but with recent news out of the Grand Am, it appears as if he still might be busy there too. Just last week, Grand Am agreed to allow the Porsche competitors to run a 3.8 liter motor, something that the Porsche competitors had been campaigning for. As well as the new motor, Porsche racers in the series will also be glad to know that Mazda and Corvettes will be saddled with additional weight. It’s a help, but not enough to lure Bryce back full time – the current plan is for the team to compete only at selected Grand Am events this season.

Rumors – some things just won’t go away. Will next year include street races at Oklahoma City and Baltimore (with Indy car?) Add those 2 street courses to Long Beach and possibly St Pete again and the schedule takes on a rather heavily biased concrete canyon type of appearance. Didn’t CART/Champ Car try that too? Likely to be gone next year is Miller, as well as possibly Lime Rock and maybe even Mid Ohio? Some of silly season is starting early… Maybe stupid season is more appropriate here.

Vici is looking at a return, possibly as soon as Laguna… is there a boy crying wolf somewhere?  

Off to a greatly need breakfast/driver meet at Aston Martin...