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Utah Grand Prix, practice day

To: land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Utah Grand Prix, practice day
From: Ray Buck <rbuck@aros.net>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:22:21 -0600
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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