I spent the day at the new Miller Motor Sports Park for the
ALMS/Speed World Challenge/Star Mazda event today. The track is so
new that they're still putting the finishing touches on it...and
having some of the expected birthing pains. But for a practice day
it was pretty good...even if there was only one concession stand (and
only one other place to get water on a 100 F day) open for the whole
4.5 mile track. But I survived.
I got there earlier than I needed to because I didn't have a clue
when they were going to start practice...their website wasn't real
helpful beforehand: http://www.millermotorsportspark.com/
I took a buncha pics, but I'm not really happy with them. My Sony
digital camera is better suited for still pics rather than action
photo, especially when using the digital zoom. But they're better
than nothing. I put the pics into the Cruisin Utah section of my
website, so if ya go there:
http://www.chevyasylum.com/cruisin06/Welcome.html you can select the
appropriate link. I just did some quick captions on the thumbnail
pages...but you can get an idea of what's going on.
I didn't stay for the ALMS prototype and GT practice, cuz it started
at 6:30 pm (a 2 hour dinner break) and I was hot, tired and hurting
like hell. So I'll get more pics tomorrow, which is qualifying
day...and then more on Saturday which is race day. It actually made
sense to have the ALMS (that's American LeMans Series in case you're
not familiar with it) cars practice at the same time they're going to
race: Saturday nite from 6pm to 8:45. For some reason, 2:45 is the
standard length of that series' sprint races (as opposed to 6 or 12
hour endurance races.)
I'll be back tomorrow for qualifying, which shouldn't be as long a
day as today was, but Saturday is going to be a real long day with
races running from roughly 11am to 9 pm. Of course if I didn't like
it, I wouldn't be going there. I really do enjoy the racing and this
was my first IMSA/ALMS sports car race in a whole lot of years. It
was nice to see some sports car racing after a long hiatus. I better
send this and get to bed.
Ray
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