Slipstream - November 2013

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ALMS and WEC at COTA: Sports Car Racing Weekend in Austin By Alan Bambina OK, OK, enough with the alphabet soup! All of those acronyms in the title translate to American LeMans Series and World Endurance Championship at Circuit of the Americas. This little exposé is not about the entire weekend of racing with all the rain on Friday, lack of practice for the drivers before the race on Saturday, or the six hour endurance race on Sunday. It is about an incredible opportunity that was afforded to me for nothing more than having a little luck. This “luck” was having my name drawn for a raffle at the PCNA Hospitality tent at the race, and what I won was an up close and personal look at what the drivers and crew see all weekend long: the HOT PITS DURING THE RACE! Two happy Porsche Club members (as well as two Corvette Club members, two Viper Club members, two fill-in-the-blank car club members, etc.) were closely escorted up and down the entire length of the pits, viewing each team’s set-up for the race just on the inside of the concrete wall that separates the active pit box from the tool boxes and the telemetry. That Alan’s winnings that weekend also included two parade laps around the track. Photo taken from the Bambinas’ 997 Photos by Linda Bambina Alan with Paul Gregor, who is the PCNA Manager of Porsche Clubs North America was the surprise for me. How much electronics and communication there is between the pits and the cars. When you watch a race on TV, you see a lot of footage shot from a camera mounted on the roof of the car and perhaps one out the back. What you don’t see are all the rest of the camera images the teams don’t share with the networks. You don’t see the monitors with a dizzying array of data showing the drivers’ performance in each turn, the heart rate and blood pressure data, engine temperatures and pressures, and how the G-forces have an effect on lap times and tire wear. Some of the teams had a miniature studio of more than ten monitors right there on the pit wall all showing every conceivable detail of that car and drivers’ attitude. Led by Car Corral Fan Facilitators Tiffany and Diezel Lodder, this fire-suited group of winners went down the entire length of the pits, then back, stopping at strategic locations to point out an important detail or two. Problem was, not all the participants had headphones to hear his microphone, so he tried to shout. Not a prayer. The noise level of an Aston Martin screeching to a halt, fueling and rejoining the fray was more than his voice could overcome, so most of us didn’t try to hear him. We witnessed two hot pit stops while there, and lots of hurried preparation for upcoming stops. If we lingered too long in one spot, Tiffany tried to coax us along in an unsuccessful attempt to keep us all together. Seriously? You try to keep a bunch of drooling motorheads together. 16 <strong>November</strong>
Alan (center) and the other red-suited winners going places that very few race fans ever get to experience first hand. All too soon, our time in the pits came to an end, and we had to wiggle out of our cool (darned hot) red Nomex fire suits. A few group pictures were taken, and we were once again part of the great unwashed race fan conglomerate. I was lucky (again) to have my very own personal photographer handy, although she was stopped at the gate and prevented from tagging along. My many thanks to Paul Gregor as well as Diezel and Tiffany Lodder for organizing this unforgettable trip down a path mere mortals hardly ever see. Some days, it is more about the cars. 17
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