Saturday, October 1, 2011. I was finally going to Road Atlanta for the first time. I was going to Petit Le Mans for the first time. My first endurance race.
We met up at Matt's house and went to a normal, healthy breakfast at Waffle House. After that we had a quick stop at Kroger to pick up foodstuffs for the race. Then it was on to the track.
I had to park over a quarter of a mile from the track, and the walk was really quite nice. The weather was fantastic, with a high of about 65 and a light wind all day. Unfortunately for me, Road Atlanta is uphill, both ways. I never knew just how much elevation change there was at the track, but it is quite a bit.
We had two cars, but only one infield pass, so I opted to park outside and let the guys with the SUV go in, as they could carry all our stuff. We eventually reached the car, after several wrong turns and much arguing about where they were. From there the discussion turned to where we should watch the race from. Some of the guys wanted to go to turn 9, one of the faster points on the track. I tagged along with Matt ad some of the others, heading to the Esses.
We reached a good spot between turns 4 and 5 just as the parade lap was rolling off the grid. The line of 53 cars rolled by and tried my best to get a cursory glance at each one. Audis, Peugeots, Ferraris, Astins. It was going to be a good day.
A few seconds after the last car disappeared over the hill of turn 5 I heard four loud pops in the direction of the start/finish line and then a loud roar filled the air. I looked toward the exit of turn 3 and saw what I later described as a cartoon image of Taz, the Tasmanian Devil, coming into view.
The dust cloud billowed and the fast cars rolled by. We stayed at the Esses for a while. The trick with the Esses is that it is a beautiful part of the track, but you are unlikely to see any overtaking moves. More often than not, you'll see the faster cars setting up there runs on the slower cars for turn 5.
View of the Esses
After our stay at the Esses we began to migrate around the track. We went to turn 8, 9, 10a, and 10b before an excursion to Vendor Village and then over to turn 3. As the ten hour race wore on I decided to try to finally find Robert and Carl. I met up with them in the grandstands of turn 10 just as night was falling. We still had about two hours of racing left, but through a stroke of luck I met up with them at the right time.
We made our way to the paddock and settled in near the Intersport Racing pit as the final laps wound down. Intersport was leading the LMPC class, but it was coming down to the wire. Sadly, Intersport lost out by .172 seconds, losing the lead on the last turn of the last lap.
As the race ended I said my goodbyes and began the long walk back to my car, knowing that I had people depending on me for a ride. We drove back to Matt's house and unloaded, weary from the day. By my best estimate, I walked around 12 or 13 miles Saturday, a lot of it going uphill. And I can't wait to go back.
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