66 replies to this topic

[Prost1997T]

Conor Daly leading LMPC. Noticed Daniel Burkett is also in that class again. Sean Rayhall isn't there though

[JHSingo]

Some good GT battles still going on. Feels like this race has flown by.

[Sheepmachine]

Negri JR clatters off at the carousel. Lucky to get it out of the gravel. The battle for 2nd in GTLM is exciting.

[Afterburner]

2nd in GTLM looks like it'll go down to the last lap. Come on, Kaffer!

[Prost1997T]

Daly spun away the LMPC win on the last lap.

[yasushi888]

Great Racing!   Nice to hear Kaffer didn't have any probs with it

[JHSingo]

Ferrari and Porsche trading paint on the last lap...what more do you need from a sportscar race?

 

Good end to an entertaining weekend of racing. Hope you enjoyed it Afterburner.

[Sheepmachine]

What a last lap! Daly spins away the PC class win and the Porsche and Ferrari collide, not sure who was at fault or if it was a racing incident really. Great race though.

[Volcano70]

Congrats to all 4 class winners today in Wisconsin! Personally i like the Whelen prototype, the Dodge Riley, and the Porsches, so all good for me. Sucks that Conor spun in turn 5, but don't mind Junqueria winning. Awesome Porsche 1-2 in GTLM (for now?)!    

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

Wow, now that's a car race. I may need a few hours to figure out what happened in the last lap. Just great racing.

[lewymp4]

The Director of the world feed should be taken out and shot, for not showing more of the last lap fight between Bergmeister  in the Porsche, and Kaffer's  Ferrari.  Why should we have been subjected to such an exciting end.....

[Wingcommander]

The Director of the world feed should be taken out and shot, for not showing more of the last lap fight between Bergmeister  in the Porsche, and Kaffer's  Ferrari.  Why should we have been subjected to such an exciting end.....

 

Gotta show the class winners...

[Peat]

Due to a brutal hangover, I had fallen asleep during the last hour but stirred as the white flag flew. 

That last lap really blew my sozzled/sleepy mind. I had no idea what was going on! Brilliant! Great job by the 911.

[OvDrone]

Road America and sportscars delivered yet again. What a race.

[Afterburner]

So finally back home after a phenomenally awesome weekend at the track, and having had a chance to go through all the pictures and video I took, have finally gotten around to sharing them here--I can hear your browser straining under the load right now. This is going to require two posts, as the board has a limitation on how many images you can link in a single post.

Part 1

Friday was rainy. Very rainy. As in 'you need an umbrella or you're going to be soaked' rainy. After I was done walking around my shoes and socks were dripping wet--and they didn't dry out by next morning, either. But it was totally worth it--Road America is every bit as gorgeous as you've ever heard, even in the sopping rain. Apart from liquid sunshine and muddy scouting, the pictures tell most of Friday's story. Saw the whole of the front straight, the last turn, turns 4 and 5, turn 8, the carousel, and the kink. In other words, most of the track.


An LMPC car braves the conditions on the front straight.


The 007 Aston Martin makes its way to the pits following the red flag for the 16's crash.


The spectator trail along the straight connecting turns 4 and 5. Looks like it could be Spa.


An IMSA Lites driver barrels towards a wet kink. This view is from the hill to the right of the preceding straight.


The Corvette boys contemplate life as the rain makes an appearance in my photos. Shoes are basically ponds at this point (sadly not that kind).

Sadly, towards the afternoon, watching cars zoom by and attempting to prevent my sister from preventing me from taking pictures of her began to get tedious as the wind picked up and things got to be pretty cold (not Detroit Day 2 cold, but still pretty cold). So we watched the rest of the race inside the building on the front straight while our clothes began drying out at roughly the same rate as stars die.

The next day began as overcast and sprinkly, so Mr. Umbrella was once again a travelling partner, along with two racemate siblings (chemistry pun intended). Today, the goal was to observe all the turns we didn't see yesterday, including 1, 2, 7, and the back stretch--not a lot of track considering we basically toured the entire thing in the rain the day prior. We journeyed to pit out to watch the IMSA Lites take to the track for the morning's first session after saying 'hi' to some friends up in the main building, and then made our way through the paddock to chat with some friends there that we didn't see the day before. I was wholly stunned for a brief second when Viper-girl--the same one who did as a proper ginger should and stole my soul at Sebring--passed us, wearing a team jacket whose hood was up. I turned around once I'd realized who I'd seen, and she was gone. Such is life.


An IMSA worker directs the IMSA Lites onto a still-damp track for their first session of the day. Shortly after the race was over, the return of Indycar to Road America was announced. I'm seeking arrangements to attend even as I write this post.


The view of the paddock from the end of the pits, on the trail leading to the Sargento bridge.


The trail to turn 1 from the end of the pit lane. There's an RV campground on the other side of the woods.


The IMSA GT3 Cup drivers negotiate the slippery climb (Crash pun!) to the Corvette bridge. This was a really cool part of the track to spectate because we could see all the action up the hill to the finish line in the background. This proved useful during the CTSC race later on in the afternoon, the end of which I watched from here.


The Tudor bad boys navigate turn 7 on the downhill run to the carousel. This was a flat-out awesome place to watch. Only a few of them were brave enough to do this one flat.


The view from the hill on the outside of turn 7. Another really awesome place from which to spectate. The go-kart track is just across the track.


The dreaded kink. Barely damp, but still no-one dared try it without at least lifting. I don't blame them. Of note is the marshal station on the outside of the corner. I imagine SOP here is 'duck first, wave yellow second'.


There are my boys! The solitary LMP2 competitor in the field heads towards Speedville. John Pew would go on to set the fastest time of the wet final practice session by around 0.7 seconds. It was enough to make me wish it rained on Sunday.


One-legged American Badass Liam Dwyer signs autographs on the hood of his Freedom Autosport Miata. I try not to laugh at the juxtaposition. Hyperbole aside, what he's doing is awesome--I don't know of any drivers beside Zanardi with prosthetic limbs, let alone any who are as successful as those two.


I got to do some more exploring during the CTSC race. This is a few hundred feet from the infield side of the Corvette Bridge. The trail pictured leads down to Canada Corner, turn 12. Just behind me is a zipline whose destination is the last turn. I was going to ride it--until I found out one ride was $20. Zipline or food? Food won.


Canada corner, complete with jumbotron. Here ends the most unique part of the track, in my opinion. I walked it counter-race.


The end of the back stretch. The run down to Canada Corner is a glorious place to sample engine music--if you head down the pictured trail until you're a little ways before the braking markers, you get a nice sample of a car at full tilt, then downshifting, then accelerating off into the distance. The Ferrari 458 won this contest, hands down.


This trail leads up to the go-kart track, from the back stretch. The reason I like sharing these types of pictures is because it astounded me just how wooded this track actually was. In some places--like this picture--it was more wooded than some hiking trails I've walked before.


Yes, I was just as confused as you are now. The owner said they bought a Smart, cut it in half, lengthened it, and added rear seats. He and his wife use it exclusively to drive around race tracks. The parking pass in the window was for 'CTSC Competitor Parking'. Being an elderly gentleman, I can only imagine he was senior team personnel; I asked, but carrying on a conversation on the back stretch was impossible and I didn't feel like making him repeat himself more than twice. As an aside, the car retained a functioning flappy-paddle gearbox. Cue laughter.


My phone began to die towards the end of the back stretch, so I took far fewer pictures from that point onward. But this was too good to pass up. Prior to the IMSA conference later in the evening, during which their 'promotional services' would be required, the Weather Tech girls apparently decided to have a little fun on the kart track. No-one would've believed me unless I took a picture--so I did.

So ended Saturday's pictorial adventures. The Continental race had an epic finish that involved the leaders hitting traffic in the final turn; Rum Bum was victorious, but by only a slim margin. ST leader Spencer Pumpelly also ran out of fuel on the last lap as one of the Alara Miatas found the gravel in the final corner, essentially resulting in being classified last of the still-running cars. All in all, a good race.

By the end of the day I was coming down with a sore throat (no doubt due in part to being externally over-hydrated the previous day), so I decided to watch the rest of the day's activities from inside a suite in the main building on the front straight. It quickly became evident that the running order had changed entirely in the Tudor series now that the sun was out. Following the day's festivities, I was presented with the rare opportunity (one of many this weekend, actually) to get a first-hand insight into the series' future. You all know now most of what I got to see first-hand that evening--except for the extraordinarily cute Porsche press girl who easily put all the 'glamour girls' at the track to shame. Take it from someone who loves to people-watch (not pervishly, just in general; race-tracks are a gold mine for this, but nothing I saw here came anywhere close to most of the crap I saw at Sebring )--the prettiest girls at a race track are always well hidden, away from the cameras, on the pit-wall or elsewhere.

[Afterburner]

Part 2

Sunday began with a worsened sore throat and a headache. I spent most of the morning, earplugs in, napping on the deck chairs they have on the balcony beneath the start stand so as to recover for the afternoon. This was probably the most surreal experience of the weekend; if you've never been lulled to sleep by a gentle parade of flat-sixes singing their hearts out at full tilt in the back of a GT3 Cup fleet, you should try it sometime.

By the afternoon, I was feeling much better. I thought I'd had a cold, but no other symptoms manifested themselves, so I was ready to go. I didn't take as many pictures on Sunday, but the rest of them are below.


The view of Sunday's pre-race gridwalk from the start stand. The IMSA starters are amazingly cool people, in case you were wondering.


Taken from the aforementioned balcony beneath the start stand. Polesitter Joey Hand leads the field on the first of two formation laps. MSR, car 60, identified a problem with their fuel cell after Saturday qualifying and did not participate in the morning warm-up. They started the race from pit-lane.


The heavily damaged Turner car is returned to a crestfallen crew. The highs and lows of racing are typified here--the team had just won the last race after hiring a local body shop to help them get the car repaired in time for the race following a pre-race shunt. As my brother remarked, 'You know it's bad when even the Turner girls look dejected.'


After exploring the back stretch, we made our way to turn 7 to watch most of the race. Road America at its finest, right here. The leader-lights are also hugely instrumental in making it easier to follow the race; it was nice to know what was going on through observation alone--no commentary or live timing. The weather was probably the best I've ever experienced at a race track.


The view from the woods just outside of turn 6, as the GTLM 458 begins its glorious solo on the run to turn 7. It was at this point that things began to get interesting in GTLM, with about an hour to go.


The checkered flag flies on the 31 Whelen/Action Express Corvette DP, who drove what was a pretty tough race to secure a 1-2 finish for Action Express; I can't wait until these guys head to Le Mans with LMP2s and their flagship endurance driver, Sebastien Bourdais, 'cause they're gonna be brutal to beat. Negri threw away 3rd with a last-lap excursion into the gravel, and Porsche v. Ferrari proved to be well and truly alive. Conor Daly went full Indycar and did a pre-2015 Graham Rahal.


The race being completed, we headed to the podium for what was a decidedly neat experience. AXR celebrates another win in victory lane.


One of the Viper guys congratulates Kuno Wittmer on a second-place finish for TRG AMR. Sadly Viper-girl was nowhere to be found.


A few Le Mans winners talk about another successful conquest with their team personnel before ascending the podium.


The P-class winners celebrate their victory. Whoever decided to put the tall Conti girl next to Scott Pruett obviously needed a laugh. At one point during the presentation, Greg Creamer's microphone died, which we all realized when his voice suddenly got much quieter and announced 'Greg needs a microphone!' Not wanting to hold up ceremonies, Greg proceeded through the celebrations without electronic assistance. His return to the loudspeaker a minute or so later was graced with the quip, 'That's a relief, I think I only lost one vocal cord.'


The PC-class winners on the podium. I attempt to contain my amusement as the same tall Conti girl now stands next to Conor Daly, who looks anything but happy at having this cap off an already-embarassing race. Also of note but not clearly visible in this particular picture, Sheboygan native James French takes perhaps one too many liberties with the Continental girl who's standing next to him. Racing drivers, I suppose.


The GTLM winners got to share the podium with the Michelin man, whose costume was so freaking reflective it completely jacked up the auto-focus on my phone's camera anytime he got in the vicinity of a shot--I swear when he walked in front of me my screen went so white I thought he'd fried the lens on my phone. Amusingly he could barely fit up the stairs to the left of shot. Also amusingly, the Porsche v. Ferrari battle continued on the podium, as the drivers took turns aiming (successfully) for their opponents' eyes with their champagne. All in the name of fun...? (By the way, Fisico's a camper.)


The GTD winners take to the podium. This quickly became the Christina Nielsen show; the loudest cheer of the race weekend occurred when she stepped up to the podium, and all the attention of the crowd was on her. She was awkward--in a smiley way--around the Continental girl who approached her on the podium. I didn't notice until she walked past me that she is essentially the Danish racing driver doppleganger of a friend of mine.

After the last podium ceremony had concluded, I made my way towards the rest of my siblings and we perused the track for a little while before we left. We chatted here and there with IMSA staff who were leaving the event as well as Road America staff, including a young girl who was, much to my excitement, mildly fluent in the language of organic chemistry, as she was studying to become an RN. Before leaving the track, we encountered a pair of fans who'd been attending races for several decades--one German, one American--and talked about great races of the past all over the globe for several hours before finally departing the track well after the IMSA crew had finally finished packing up and the sun had gone down. Racing fans, from any continent, are all the same.

All in all, it was everything I could've hoped for from a race weekend. Good weather, good racing, a beautiful track, and fun people with which to spend it. It was a reminder that racing--as perhaps any extreme sport--is a unique celebration of life whose vigor is only truly understood in person. It's hard--no, more like impossible--to feel the excitement, the passion, and the beauty of what goes on during a race weekend through a television set or computer monitor. You've got to be there in person to fully comprehend it--the energy and ecstasy that radiates from this particular kind of competition is a feeling that is truly without words, incommunicable without the context of the present. When it was all over, I felt as if the race was far too short--and I can't wait to go back to Road America.

Hope you guys enjoyed the race as much as I did.

[Peat]

Superb, another track officially added to my bucket list.