October 17, 20187 yr Have any of you ever spent much time in Mexico? Even in the resort areas, there's always sort of this thin veneer of luxury, or even functionality, and then behind the curtains everything is sort of... decaying. COTA seems a lot like that to me. On the outside, everything is supposed to look like it's 100%, whole, pretty, functioning. But just under the surface, it's not. It's a facade. It's a put-on.
October 17, 20187 yr Insert he's not wrong gif. My favorite things are the crackheads working the parking lots and shuttles and the fact that anyone can wander into the RV lot and do whatever.
October 17, 20187 yr Lot of tracks are like that. Montreal is like that. They’re about to dump a bunch of money in it, though.
October 17, 20187 yr 35 minutes ago, utee94 said: Have any of you ever spent much time in Mexico? Even in the resort areas, there's always sort of this thin veneer of luxury, or even functionality, and then behind the curtains everything is sort of... decaying. COTA seems a lot like that to me. On the outside, everything is supposed to look like it's 100%, whole, pretty, functioning. But just under the surface, it's not. It's a facade. It's a put-on. Is it an eminence front? Edited October 17, 20187 yr by wood
October 17, 20187 yr 17 minutes ago, relapse98 said: Insert he's not wrong gif. My favorite things are the crackheads working the parking lots and shuttles and the fact that anyone can wander into the RV lot and do whatever. You can wander onto the track, too! Even ride a moped out there at night. Crazy stuff.
October 17, 20187 yr 18 minutes ago, relapse98 said: Insert he's not wrong gif. My favorite things are the crackheads working the parking lots and shuttles and the fact that anyone can wander into the RV lot and do whatever. Yeah there are a couple ways to sneak into COTA .. or so I've been told. The RV lot on the backstraight is one of 'em. And yeah, ya gotta love the rapist methheads.
October 18, 20187 yr 12 hours ago, Anton Chigurh said: Lot of tracks are like that. Montreal is like that. They’re about to dump a bunch of money in it, though. Yeah, that's fair. It's not an easy challenge-- the margins to host an F1 race are razor thin at best, and many or even most tracks actually lose money doing it. Several of the tracks in Europe and Asia are only able to continue because they are heavily subsidized by their governments (sounds familar, eh ). And staffing is another major challenge. You've got to find event staff to manage 150K people at a time, but only once per year. Even if they were able to bring in other major races, it's still only going to be 2-3x per year. So it's not surprising they end up with carnie-types. Overall I'm still delighted to have COTA and have the race here in Austin. I never really even dreamed of getting to see a race live-- maybe once in Monaco or Spa when I'm old and decrepit, simply because they're bucket list, but in general justifying that expense over all the other discretionary choices I have, would be difficult. I was pretty much resigned to never seeing one in person, and then they went and dropped a purpose-built track in my backyard. Despite its faults, I'll always appreciate COTA for that. Speaking of which, grabbing all my rain gear and mud gear, and headed out in about an hour. Unforunately I'm still "working" today so I'll likely log in a little later whilst tethered. I'll give you a report on the condition of the place, if anyone's interested. Pit walk's at 4 so I'll be inside by then.
October 18, 20187 yr Most high-end restaurants in Austin can't find enough front-of-house people to staff their establishment. Is it a surprise COTA can't find 100 upstanding citizens with no substance issues to stand out in a hot/wet field for 72 hours?
October 18, 20187 yr 1 hour ago, Lobo said: Most high-end restaurants in Austin can't find enough front-of-house people to staff their establishment. Is it a surprise COTA can't find 100 upstanding citizens with no substance issues to stand out in a hot/wet field for 72 hours? Idk. Finding good waitstaff is probably a little different than getting a temp event staffing service to provide some folks to stand and give directions & not rape or kill anyone. I'm guessing they get what they pay for.
October 18, 20187 yr 3 hours ago, utee94 said: Yeah, that's fair. It's not an easy challenge-- the margins to host an F1 race are razor thin at best, and many or even most tracks actually lose money doing it. Several of the tracks in Europe and Asia are only able to continue because they are heavily subsidized by their governments (sounds familar, eh ). And staffing is another major challenge. You've got to find event staff to manage 150K people at a time, but only once per year. Even if they were able to bring in other major races, it's still only going to be 2-3x per year. So it's not surprising they end up with carnie-types. Overall I'm still delighted to have COTA and have the race here in Austin. I never really even dreamed of getting to see a race live-- maybe once in Monaco or Spa when I'm old and decrepit, simply because they're bucket list, but in general justifying that expense over all the other discretionary choices I have, would be difficult. I was pretty much resigned to never seeing one in person, and then they went and dropped a purpose-built track in my backyard. Despite its faults, I'll always appreciate COTA for that. Speaking of which, grabbing all my rain gear and mud gear, and headed out in about an hour. Unforunately I'm still "working" today so I'll likely log in a little later whilst tethered. I'll give you a report on the condition of the place, if anyone's interested. Pit walk's at 4 so I'll be inside by then. Too bad COTA actually ran off the guy who did all the work bringing it to us. I could appreciate it a lot more had they not done that. He'd be running things quite a bit differently, too, which would also make me appreciate it more.
October 18, 20187 yr BTW, Hulk crashed during a demo run yesterday at the Microsoft Store in the Domain. I'd have gone, but they scheduled the damn thing at like 4:30 way across town from my house. Fuck that. O nly 40-50 people showed up according to reddit guys. Apparently Renault had printed up 150 signed photos. https://streamable.com/qk708 Edited October 18, 20187 yr by wood
October 18, 20187 yr Yeah, this is kind of a big deal. I've been waiting for years for Coca Cola to enter F1. Coca-Cola agrees F1 sponsorship deal with McLaren https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/coca-cola-agrees-sponsorship-deal-with-mclaren/3197157/
October 18, 20187 yr 33 minutes ago, wood said: T15 yesterday. From Mercedes... need guys with push brooms and go borrow some jet trucks
October 18, 20187 yr 32 minutes ago, mcbrisket said: So are we looking at 2015 levels of mud? I am heading over for FP1/2 tomorrow. Not sure how to compare. Let's just say it's gonna be pretty damn muddy.
October 18, 20187 yr Heading out for the Pit Walk in a few minutes. No, I don't have tickets. Seems they've been keeping it all hush-hush this year. They've never really checked passes before though, so I'ma give it a shot. 3:300-5:30 if anyone wants to try it. Don't go posting that around... Edited October 18, 20187 yr by wood
October 19, 20187 yr So were you able to just show up with no pass? Wish I had saw that earlierAnother reminder to check your dvr's. My uverse needed to be adjusted
October 19, 20187 yr When and what channel is the qualifying this weekend for TV? I see the race is on ABC
October 19, 20187 yr Just got back. Any of y'all in Lot L or M ... you're gonna need a bigger boat. Lot T at the top.
October 19, 20187 yr When and what channel is the qualifying this weekend for TV? I see the race is on ABC Looks like ESPNews.
October 19, 20187 yr 28 minutes ago, Goofyboy said: Lot T at the top. Didn't go there... Keep your fingers crossed.
October 19, 20187 yr 1 hour ago, bigup2dahorns said: When and what channel is the qualifying this weekend for TV? I see the race is on ABC The schedule sees Friday’s FP1 and FP2 sessions on ESPNU at 9.55am and 1.55pm respectively, with Saturday’s FP3 and qualifying on ESPNews at 12.55pm and 3.55pm respectively. (times are Central) https://www.motorsport.com/us/f1/news/usgp-f1-coverage-by-espn-abc/3196712/ Edited October 19, 20187 yr by Yama Yak Yachtzi add link
October 19, 20187 yr 16 hours ago, mcbrisket said: So are we looking at 2015 levels of mud? I am heading over for FP1/2 tomorrow. Nah, nowhere near that. The worst of the rain happened 5 days ago at this point. I walked pretty much the entire track yesterday and the worst areas are actually just off the gravel pathways, anywhere they had to use trucks to deliver the equipment (think vendor booths, kiosks, etc.). Also, anywhere food vendor trucks parked. The tires really chewed up the grass/dirt badly in those areas. But they were in the process of distributing gravel everywhere. I took a lot of pictures, but have never set up an image hosting service so, sorry...
October 19, 20187 yr Made it to pit walk around 4:20, I held up my emailed ticked on my phone and they barely looked at it. Also didn't comment on the can of beer I was openly carrying into the track. Overall I think you should take a light raincoat/windbreaker, and wear some shoes that will handle the mud (no flip flops, nor sandals for the womenfolk), and you'll be fine. It's not going to be as bad as I thought, and much much much better than 2015. Edited October 19, 20187 yr by utee94
October 19, 20187 yr Here are just a few I took and posted to FB. The last one is my buddy BG, please don't stalk us.
October 19, 20187 yr The first one is the view from our RV down to the Turn3 gate. You can see we're exactly aligned with the exit of the bridge. For the middle one (and many others I didn't post) we just wandered in through an open gate and looked around. At some point, one guy who looked semi-official said he was some sort of site safety auditor, and asked us what "we" were going to do about the puddle at the bottom of the stairs of that bridge. I was wearing Longhorn gear and holding a beer. So was my buddy BG. I guess we looked close enough to COTA officials to ask that question. It was pretty funny. But seriously, watch out for that puddle. You can't step over it, you basically have to jump. Hopefully they squeegeed it away or something. Anyway, taking the kids to school this morning, grandparents have them the rest of the weekend, so I'm headed back out to the track as soon as that's done. Seeya there!
October 19, 20187 yr Oh, and I took a brief trip to each tunnel-- no standing water in there. It's all good.
October 19, 20187 yr 25 minutes ago, texasdago said: Live tweets from COTA sound like its a freakin' joke right now source or twitter handles?
October 19, 20187 yr 3 minutes ago, Armybrat said: Looks pretty wet on tv It does and I'm sure parking is a blast and will continue to be (they've already started limiting the people in N, I think, and putting new ones in a different lot). But you can see the racing line has dried out fairly well.
October 19, 20187 yr Vettel now has a 3 place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for red flags in FP1.
October 20, 20187 yr I can't believe these Brits on Sky thought it was that cold today. It was what? 60? 55 at worst? In FP2 I got completely soaked & still wasn't all that cold.
October 20, 20187 yr so i forgot to buy my 3 day GA pass and it look like they're not selling any anymore, is that really the case i can't walk up and buy a wristband tomorrow morning?
October 20, 20187 yr Hadn't heard that. Why would they stop selling them? Trying to claim a full sellout lol? Just checked their site and the Ticketmaster links for to sold out messages like you said. How the fuck do you sell out GA at a place the size of COTA. Ridiculous. I don;t believe they sold all their reserved seating at all either. As of late last night they still had thousands of reserved seats available for tomorrow. Edited October 20, 20187 yr by wood
October 20, 20187 yr 1 hour ago, elfenix said: so i forgot to buy my 3 day GA pass and it look like they're not selling any anymore, is that really the case i can't walk up and buy a wristband tomorrow morning? Hey, look at this on reddit. Free tickets if you can pick em up first... https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/9pqvby/free_usgp_general_admission_tickets/
October 20, 20187 yr I'm guessing it's based on the fact the event has started - Ticketmaster may have its system set up not to sell afterward.
October 20, 20187 yr 1 minute ago, elfenix said: I'm guessing it's based on the fact the event has started - Ticketmaster may have its system set up not to sell afterward. Maybe so. Not good for the seller in a multi-day event. You saw the thing about the free tickets, right? Edited October 20, 20187 yr by wood
October 20, 20187 yr Maybe so. Not good for the seller in a multi-day event. You saw the thing about the free tickets, right?Yeah, pm'd that guy on Reddit
October 20, 20187 yr 8 hours ago, elfenix said: 9 hours ago, wood said: Maybe so. Not good for the seller in a multi-day event. You saw the thing about the free tickets, right? Yeah, pm'd that guy on Reddit Allsome. Hope you get 'em! Seems like a lot of tickets hitting the market.
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