Laguna Seca Report
Hey all -
Finally had a chance to put my storytelling hat on and do a writeup of the Laguna weekend.
Great fun with everybody as always - it was a riot having everybody bunched in the garages, sharing information and talking crap at eachother.
Enjoy!
"Nostalgia Trip"
They say "You can't go back," and by and large, "they" are right. I visited my boyhood home a few years ago, and it was a run-down and overgrown shell of the place in my memories. Still, that reality doesn't stop many of us from trying to drag the past up from the depths.
Such was the case for me and my family as we continued west on highway 80 outside of Salt Lake City – dutiful nod to Tooele as we went by – and into the stark salt flats of western Utah. For each one of us, it was our first time west of Utah on I-80 in years. For me, it was the highway that brought me to Colorado to begin my college adventure. For Mom and Dad, it carried them east into retirement to their new home in Pagosa Springs after leaving their home and business of 20 years in Napa.
Our nostalgia trip continued at a low level as we motored steadily across Nevada – small memories of many a family road trip from Napa to Pagosa cropping up as we drove onward. In Battle Mountain, Dad recalled a biblical lightning storm we drove through one night on our way out. In another, Mom pointed out where they'd unloaded and watered the horses when they made their final move to Pagosa. In Elko, I recalled my unscheduled stop with the Nevada State Patrol as an 18-year old, who explained to my friend that 105mph was not an acceptable speed to be traveling, no matter how deserted the highway may seem.
And so on.
What really left all three of us struggling to remain dry-eyed was hitting the Calfornia border near Donner Pass, catching a whiff of the Sierra mountain air, and recalling all the family ski trips. Helping the sense that we'd stepped back 20 years in time was a steady diet of 90's country music coming from Sirius – Garth Brooks, Reba McIntrye, ah, how far you've come. As we continued towards Fairfield and our turn south to 680 for Monterey, the feeling that we were traveling not so much westward, but back in time, grew stronger for all three of us.
We got to within about half a mile of the turn-off to Napa, but instead, southward we went to Monterey. Enough nostalgia...let's build some new memories, eh?
Friday
One reaches Laguna Seca by skirting the east bay area after turning south from I-80. A few bone-jarring hours on California's crumbling highways brings you south of San Jose, into the Monterey area. April is an almost idea time to be in Northern California – and it's almost one of the best places to be anywhere. The rain and gloom of January and February have given way, and the heat and brown dryness of July and August have not yet taken hold. The lush grass on the hills rolls and waves in the wind, and the low smooth shapes look like big green gumdrops put down by a giant's hand. The hills are dotted with oak trees that beg you to hop a fence, pull off your socks, and go ponder life from the crook of a branch for a while.
Around the bottom of one such green-gumpdrop is the entrance to the Laguna Seca recreational area. A small sign marks your turn, and you then proceed STRAIGHT UP to the top of the cliff that they have built the race track on. A sign on the way out tells you that you are going down a 16% grade, and it feels every bit of it! A healthy dose of throttle is required to pull your rig up to the top of the hill that affords entrance to the track.
Laguna doesn't have the same immediately intimidating presence that Road America and Circuit of the Americas do. Part of it is that you come down into the paddock from up high, rather than from the lowest point. Plus, there's no looming presence above you, such as the climb to T14 at Road America, or the monstrous T1 climb in Texas. Rather, you pass over the track as it heads innocently up a hill, and you can see it sidle back into view around another as you descend into the paddock. It's only as you hit the track that you realize what a roller coaster you've signed up for.
We arrived a bit early and queued up in a line outside the paddock for a while. John LaBrie met me, Lucian, and a few of the others, and the weekend bench racing began in earnest. John gave us our assigned garage spots, as he had bought out the row so that all the competitors could have garages at a reduced rate. This made for a lot of fun and information exchange in the garages, as nearly all the F1000 competitors were within a few garage spots of eachother.
Eventually we were let in, and we unpacked. It was dark by the time we were done, and as I made my way from the trailer back towards the garage, a car rolled up, the window rolled down, and Luci's Romanian accented English emanated from within:
"Get in the car."
Not much arguing with that, is there?
I got in the car, and off we went to dinner. Tomorrow: Racing!
Continued:
http://www.jakelatham.com/f1000/raci...shtml#practice
The go west young man continued although on a tighter budget!
