Circuit of the Americas – V8 Supercars + World Challenge Coverage May 17-19

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

Editor’s note: my good friend and Nick’s Car Blog correspondent Matt Springer was able to attend this race with press credentials and live-blogged the event for us below. I’ve known Matt for many years, raced with him on our 24 Hours of LeMons team, and learned much of what I know about the B7 S4 platform from him. Below are his chronicles, largely unedited. You may or may not want to read them in a Johnny Depp playing Hunter S Thompson voice.

Day 1 – Wednesday

My dog died last weekend. I’m having a hard time being excited, but deep down I know I should be. I have a short week so I pour myself into my day job to try and forget about the dog. I get most of what I need done, but I’m sure I’ll be getting some calls over the next few days. I pack, double check my bag. Yep I got what I need. Grab a PBR and hand my keys to my wife and we motor over to pick up Craig.

Feeling a little better. Board plane, yeah there is room for my carry on. Feeling even better. A double rum and coke with a few extra airplane limes and I’m starting to groove.Fun flight. Little plane and some thermals. Whee – bang, I’m here. Hook up the free shuttle to the hotel. Glenn is waiting for me right where he should be, the bar. It’s late, like 11:15 – where did those hours go?

Nevertheless I make it just in time for a few drinks and a later supper. Room is decent, bed is clean and nice and we are only 2 or 3 miles from the track. Still have a bit of trouble falling asleep – now I’m (finally) pretty excited about tomorrow.

Day 2 – Thursday

Glenn is up early. Shoot, now I’m up. Well, ‘LETS DO THIS THING!’ I think to myself. Lavazza coffee in the room? Heck yeah. Nothing a drinker likes more than strong coffee.Shower up and head downstairs to pick up my media credentials.

I begots my pass! AND free parking in the up close lot.  mmmm the Awesomesauce is sweet.  Looks like the Circuit Of The Americas (COTA) is prepared to be excellent ambassadors for the race.

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

We pull into the lot and I feel that familiar tug in the bottom of my stomach.  This is gonna be good.  We enter through the back area, under a tunnel that runs under the front straight. Turn the corner and voilà, the Pirelli tire truck.  My amigos!  This all started because I wanted free tires.  I think it was the start of something good.

We happened to have wandered right into the World Challenge (WC) village. For those of you who have not attended one of these things – each series tends to have their own corral or area. There are at least three villages here: Aussie V8 guys have the hot pit garages. WC is directly behind them. The Porsche GT3 Cup Trophy guys are around the way.

Anyway back on track. Although we have made it and we are totally backstage – I feel like a stranger. I’m recognizing faces and teams. Feeling better, now I see my friends – Don Istook and ARC Audi crew are busy getting the GTI ready for the TC class. We hang out for a bit, but really are just getting in the way – these guys are busy.

We decide to cruise the paddock. There is Johnny O’Connell’s car – we are riding in that thing this afternoon. I feel the lighting shoot through me. How exciting. We venture further, there’s Andy Lee; Randy Pobst; whoa James Sofronas and the GMG crew have a full on city for an area – huge and full of cars. Further down we see the WC inspection area and I explain to Glenn what we are looking at. From there it was on to the Media Center. We grab an egg-a-muffin and some more coffee. We check in and get some paperwork, track maps and our vests. We are both itching to get out on the track, on to the spots most fans will never get to go.

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

We are escorted down a highly guarded hallway our through another gated and manned fence. Boom, we have hit the Holy Grail. Glenn asks if he has to stay behind the fence. Dude says no; just make sure to stay behind the guardrail. LOL seriously. So the first thing he does is go out there. Not a single thing about that seemed right. Then we notice the skid marks, the ones that lead right to where he is shooting. LOL, I tell him I’m not sure it’s really a good idea no matter what that dude said. We realize we are the only guys out walking and testing all the shooting areas. Yeah, we are ahead of the curve and take various test shots all the way around the track. We’ve found our spots – including our super sneaky area. Got some great shots and for sure favored the VAG teams. They knew it. I started noticing engine sounds were crisper, louder and more up the RPM when I was panning a driver with the 200. They all got on it when I pointed that big ole white lens at ‘em. Made friends with a corner worker in our secret spot. It seems like it’s the furthest away spot and the other ‘pros’ are not walking all the way out there. Sweet.

Corner dude is feeding us race information from his headset – hooking us up with water and even some sunscreen.  Thanks dude.  Well, we are about 5 mins away from hot laps. I’m getting stoked, seriously. TTY if I live.

Day 3 – Friday

It was a bit of land grab at the hotlap session last night and I don’t really like to play that game. I let the other journalists push their way to the front and patiently waited my turn.  I did however take a few laps in a CTS V. What a blast – really it reminded me of my car (Audi S4) a lot.  In fact, I doubled up on one of the runs and jumped from the back seat to the front seat.  I told the driver that I thought about our previous lap, the tarmac and the car.  This time it was just the two of us and he turned it up a couple of notches.

We didn’t make the cut for the hotlap session. The track went cold at 6pm on the nose and Glenn was next in line, I was behind him. Bummer – but beggars can’t be choosers and I did leave with my dignity.

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

So, its Friday and the action on track is just getting better. The Australian V8 take the track for the first time.  They are FANTASTIC machines.  I am just loving this! They are a boisterous bunch and the sweet music they freely exude is awesome.  We’ve scouted all our slots and areas and hit up several to capture various aspects and angles.  By the end of the day we had worked the inside and the outside of the track.  We’re both pretty sure we’ve got some good shots of the winners no matter who that may be.

Day 4 – Saturday

It’s Saturday and that means it’s time for a visit from the Arc folks.  The Arc sponsors Don’s racing team. They are the largest national community-based organization advocating for and serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families. The Arc is committed to ensuring that people with I/DD have the opportunity to be fully included, especially when it comes to having employment opportunities.

Two of Don’s family members have a condition called Fragile X, but that has not stopped them from working as an integral part of Don’s race team. Both Don and his wife Laurie wanted to give other people with I/DD a taste of what it might be like to be part of a fast-paced race crew.  They approached The Arc with a unique idea to include individuals in the excitement of race day as the team moves from town to town to compete.

The Arc Audi Racing Program invites individuals with I/DD, their support staff and staff from select chapters of The Arc to be honorary crew members at races across the country; giving them a unique race day experience and helping to raise awareness of The Arc and I/DD among racing fans everywhere.

Photo Credit – Chris Wynne

Green means go! It’s race day and we couldn’t be happier. We are getting a bit tired of walking and begin to use COTAs photo shuttle service more often. It’s really pretty neat, they offer chauffeured golf carts to bring media professionals to various areas on the inside and outside of the track.

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

COTA took great care to make sure the journalists had as many comforts as they could offer. The media room was large and accommodating – I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed air conditioning that much. The shuttle drivers knew the track and made good suggestions based on the time of day and lighting. There was always a free bottle of water being offered. I am truly impressed and COTA has exceeded my expectations.

As a race fan I had picked a few key spots to not only shoot photos, but to watch the action.  I was pretty happy to bring my friend Craig out to one of them for the Afternoon race session.  We hung out between turns 14 and 15 on the inside.  It was a peninsula that offered over 300 degrees of action all around us. You can also see the mighty turn 1 looming up in the distance.

What a day! We topped it off with a few too many beers and I think I will sleep like a baby tonight.

Day 5 – Sunday

We decide to take it a bit easy on ourselves and take some ‘lifestyle’ shots around the pits.  All the teams, drivers and folks we spoke to were generous and genuinely interested in sharing their world with us.  K-PAX and GMG were two standouts as they took the time to give us guided tours.  All this on the big race day; quite impressive if you ask me.  BTW not only is Randy Pobst  a hot shoe, he’s also one heck of a great guy.  He always seems to have a smile to share and has consistently makes time for others.  I really dig his mojo.

After a few dozen bottled waters, caffeinated beverages and hotdogs I’m starting to come around.  We decided to take ARC crew member Chris out to the secret peninsula for the final World Challenge race.

The awesome just keeps coming!  There were two standout moments from where I was watching.  The first one came when James Sofronas took the lead in his GMG backed Audi R8! Nothing could make this VAG enthusiast happier.  Except a few laps later when GMG R8 driver Duncan Ende executed a perfect pass on Andy Pilgrim and the CTS V to take second place – and it happened about 20 feet in front of me!  I was up in the air screaming; rooting on my favorite GT team – it was a total loss of composure and injection of adrenaline for me.  A late yellow flag did open the door for the CTS V team and Pilgrim did reclaim his slot – but only because Ende was experiencing issues with low tire pressure, he must have picked up the wrong debris somewhere on the track.

What an exciting weekend!  I loved it; the view from the inside as a guest was out of this world.  If I’ve learned one thing it’s that the view from the inside is usually worlds better than from the outside looking in and I work to get in there.  I’d like to thank Nicks Car Blog for the assignment (and congratulate him on his recent marriage);  Ali Putnam and the entire COTA team for being such wonderful hosts; Don Istook and the entire Arc Audi team for letting me tag along again.

PS – I got a fresh load of tires in the dually.  If my count is right we got 8 305s and 24 275s!  This will keep my low-brow team in business for a while.

Photo Credit – G. Hardy Photography

Thanks Matt for the great pics and entertaining coverage!