All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

I'm closer to Montreal, though I have an uncle who lives in San Antonio and has been to several of the COTA races. I think he's said he gets a 'general admission' or some sort of equivalent ticket and says he likes to wander around. Then again, he's done pretty well in life, so his idea of GA is probably different from mine.

 

You can totally do COTA from general admission. It's in rolling hills so you can have a really good view from all kinds of spots.

Montreal, not so much.

 

The GA for the Indy cars at Barber's is cool. It gets you pretty much everywhere other than the main grandstands at the start/finish line. There's a tram that circles the entire track area, and you can flag it down and get on at will, move to another set of bleachers around the perimeter or set up a chair on a hill overlooking a couple of curves. You can basically go anywhere and sit where you want to. Get bored? Move to another vantage point. Get hot? Move to the shade.

They also have local restaurants and pubs who set up in tents around the course, lots of good food and beverage options.

 

For some reason, I read this and thought of the Mr. Rogers trolley.

I was into NASCAR as a kid, but I grew up eight-plus hours from the nearest track. If the pandemic weren't happening, Road America might be a thing one of these years.

 

In a "normal" year what is the approximate attendance? It is stunning to me that in the 70's and 80's this was one of the ten biggest sports events of the year and now it is not even the biggest auto racing event.

 

I was going to guess in the neighborhood of 225,000-250,000, mainly because there's at least 25,000 people watching the infield concert who give two schicks about the race and ticket sales are probably still 85-95% of capacity. What else is there to do in Indy on Memorial Day?

The number of muddy, drink idiots has declined significantly from the true "Snake Pit" days, which is honestly a very good thing. It was pretty nasty in the infield restrooms 30 years ago.

 

Overdue, and hopefully they don’t mean Richmond.

 

Now do Talladega. "Show us your tits!"

 

How many ovals in the country are left that they or promoters haven't walked away from or that are death traps in open-wheel cars?

Phoenix, Loudon, Atlanta, Charlotte, Michigan, California, Pocono, Vegas, Dover, the Milwaukee Mile, multiple tracks in the Chicago area one of which doesn't even exist anymore? I think IndyCar tried Kansas, Nashville and Kentucky, too, haven't they?