Started the weekend running radar/laser blocking vehicle for one of the super cool TRE built RSR cars and it's Owner! Found that the detector is hitting K band on these new bumper sensors, especially so on GM products, and Audi's! Really slowed down the trip up by 30-45 minutes! Hit KA bands a good part of the way across Hwy. 46, but never found where those sources of signals were coming from! And had one car on the on ramp sitting and waiting near Soledad all dark!!!!!!!, but had hit traffic and got slowed up as we both passed that trap.
But this weekend 2015,
The Paddock was just eye candy (and the Corrals, and Vendor area had great stuff also) and I shot 8GB of pictures including roughly 5 minutes of track video. And I still haven't sorted the 2011 stuff yet.
Highlights of my weekend, were those Sunday races. The fields had such a variety of classes made up of Vintage and Modern, it was interesting to watch. How does a 962 stack up to a modern Spyder racer! How the Falken and Flying Lizard cars compared to old school speed! How the Turbo 935's would run against each other, and how they were tuned (risk the boost for the show and thrill) running in a race that included tons of normally aspirated etc. So on a number of cars driven, after seeing their 935's passed by normally aspirated cars, they should put them up for sale and go buy a Prius's or Smart cars! So much to watch, so many cars on the track, my neck was sore, and I gave myself a headache trying to process what I was seeing! It was awesome!!!!! Seeing what was the fastest non-turbo cars there, etc. etc. etc. which is my passion (the RSR's). The mostly former LeMans parade of cars on Sunday-- I wanted that Silver modern Turbo to crash (sorry!)
or get the hell out of the way of the 1998 GT1, the DML Spyder, the 936, and the 956, but they did have older stuff out there at the same time, and people without helmets unfortunately, etc..The GT1 car was trapping at 138mph following that aggravating pace car, but being such a historical car, was never allowed to run a true lap in anger!! And I was impressed because the stock turbo surprisingly as it was being a road obstacle trapped at 116 mph after being pushed on from behind. Even though butt uglier even up close, the fastest clocking up the straight was the 919 Lemans racers at 157mph, where the also butt ugly DML Spyder racer wasn't anywhere near that in the traps, but lapped the quickest in the 1:20 zone. I also tried my best to talk my way in to shoot a shot of the red version of the 919 racer, but that was only in the area for the people that are special!
Porsche gets a demerit just solely on that one car only, because for the rest-- they were totally accessible! Parked all of them, except the one- so the common man could get some bonding time! Canepa had a lousy weekend. That is rare! I like his style and driving! Would have been all the better if he could have lasted, but makes me wonder if that was due to having to really push those cars hard, based on the competition level.
PS seeing any 917 version is always a treat, and a 917/30 and three Gulf colored cars and a long tail were run hard (well maybe not the 917/30- but it was cool seeing little burst of speed here and there). My biggest complaint of this weekend and similar style events will always be the same- being the way that some of these great cars not on special display get parked, so you just can't get a respectful photo angle on them. And the other issues is that some of the race teams have them parked all disassembled and immediately reassemble the body panels just prior to the race, and then take them immediately off again with people all over them before you can get good pictures. I am as good as getting these filmed as anyone, and I just had to use all of my skill to caught some of these cars as best as I could, and just had to outright ask some of the Teams for a chance to get the car photographed using my best compliments and at times rudeness!
The Heritage tent, was fantastic and they parked them, very photographer friendly! The garage cars, also I was able to get those famous ones in the shutter! The most entertaining thing this weekend was watching all of the married men chasing the Momo girls etc. through the paddock preventing a non-obstructed view!
The thing I sucked at this weekend other than giving up on waiting for truly ugly people to get out of the camera shot I was planning, was spotting all of the famous people. I should have looked at how old they were getting during the autograph sessions (because don't old guys all look alike), so if I by chance saw them wondering around later, I could first recognize them, and maybe get a picture or bother them for one more autograph. I do think that Mark Webber honestly does like Americans! He seemed to be everywhere, like if there were a few Mark Webber clones running around the event!
Porsche really did a first class job! Any true enthusiast should have been beaming with utter enjoyment and pride after attending this fine event. I will also throw a few of my favorite pictures up, when I get a chance.
I did marvel as to where all of the Corral cars had went on Sunday. Some areas were still filled, but the older cars-- over half of those never came back for Sunday!
The real crowded day in the general event was Saturday, but the Porsche display area was fully packed the most on Sunday. The Porsches in general parking matched the number of non-Porsche spectator cars driven to the event. So it was truly an enthusiast weekend.
And lastly, do not eat a Frog Dog (the Event's Sponsored food item or whatever). It should be banned from any future events!!!! I took one bite and wasn't excited about it! I threw most of the breaded wrapping part in the trash immediately. If you liked them, then you must have some French DNA! Yuck!