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CoTA sounds like it sucks


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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

In case anyone is bored, there is the second day of the PCA race tomorrow at COTA. Likely going to be in the rain so should be interesting.  Anything from Cups (usually, I haven't checked the line-up) to 944's.  The bridge on the infield by Turn 12 -15 is a pretty good spot to watch and a short walk from the car.  Spectators are welcome and free.

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In case anyone is bored, there is the second day of the PCA race tomorrow at COTA. Likely going to be in the rain so should be interesting.  Anything from Cups (usually, I haven't checked the line-up) to 944's.  The bridge on the infield by Turn 12 -15 is a pretty good spot to watch and a short walk from the car.  Spectators are welcome and free.

Thanks for posting. There is nothing on the Cota website on this at all. Just stuff pumping NASCAR.
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  • 2 months later...

Big orange sausage kerbs along the esses today at COTA for NASCAR. I doubt they'd be in use for F1. Too big, but I wonder if we might see something similar...

Really love the professional approach the SMI people take to putting on the race. 

Do not care for 1/3 of COTA being fenced off to fans - from Turn 5 almost to the T12 grandstand. That's some of the best of COTA.

E174aiPWUAEYYhL.jpg

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On 5/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, wood said:

Big orange sausage kerbs along the esses today at COTA for NASCAR. I doubt they'd be in use for F1. Too big, but I wonder if we might see something similar...

Really love the professional approach the SMI people take to putting on the race. 

Do not care for 1/3 of COTA being fenced off to fans - from Turn 5 almost to the T12 grandstand. That's some of the best of COTA.

E174aiPWUAEYYhL.jpg

Yeah, that really sucked not getting to wander out past the Turn 5.  I guess they just didn't want to hire the staff to manage it.

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2 hours ago, utee94 said:

The Saturday act was already previously announced as Billy Joel.

I see my drunk ass taking a beautiful nap between qualifying and Billy Joel and then once again, waking up, grabbing my chair and walking to the side of the superstage inside the RV area. You can't see shit, but you can hear it beautifully.

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On 5/23/2021 at 9:38 PM, GottaB said:

Signage. This place needs much better signage.

Professionalism. This place needed a professional to run it a decade ago. They've never looked at the place from a fan's point of view and looked at the problems and what to fix/change.

Bobby Epstein. Call me. Call this group. We can walk you through things that would make this a much better facility instead of me whining about your outsourced 3rd party crackheads every year.

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11 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Epstein's goal was always to sell it as soon as he could.  But he never invested the time and resources to make it interesting enough for another party to buy.

Yeah he's been trying to sell it for years, but nobody's stupid enough to pay what the investors need for the place. IRG almost did, then walked away. Penske took a look under the hood & said nope, nope, nope, then went and bought an icon that's in great shape already, then put money into the surrounding facilities, which were in pretty good shape, too. I have a feeling SMI might have been taking it for a test drive this past weekend. Can't imagine they came away with a good impression, esp given the announcer (can't remember which one) talking about the shitty condition of the track, how "wore out & bumpy" the surface already was, etc during lap 1 of the race Sunday. They kept talking about all the puddles on the track causing problems, but I never heard anyone ask the obvious question: "Why are there puddles? Aren't race tracks designed to drain water quickly?"

13 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

Professionalism. This place needed a professional to run it a decade ago. They've never looked at the place from a fan's point of view and looked at the problems and what to fix/change.

Bobby Epstein. Call me. Call this group. We can walk you through things that would make this a much better facility instead of me whining about your outsourced 3rd party crackheads every year.

Katja Heim did some good things in spite of Bobby. Not enough though. Then the cancer kilt her.

Edited by wood
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  • 2 months later...

Damn. Guess they came in from the north on Kellam Road, blew through the stop sign at Elroy Road, continued onto COTA Blvd, then hit the gate in the dark...

Person killed, 1 injured after vehicle hits gate at Circuit of the Americas Saturday morning https://www.kxan.com/traffic/person-killed-1-injured-after-vehicle-hits-gate-at-circuit-of-the-americas-saturday-morning/

circuit-of-the-americas-gate-crash-COTA-

circuit-of-the-americas-gate-crash-COTA-

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Holy shit, man.

According to a reddit poster who said he was one of the first on the scene, the gate was open and there was a vehicle in front of this guy when he turned onto COTA Blvd. Apparently he went around the vehicle for some reason, not knowing the gate was there, and impaled the truck on the gate. He says a passenger in the back seat was decapitated & the driver was the pin-in. Ugh. If you look at the keye website's video, you can see what he means. The gate goes through the cab, coming in from the front at an angle, and exiting the right rear door.

What's not clear is whether the gate was partially out in the roadway at an angle when he hit it, or if it was parked all the way at the side of the road, parallel to traffic flow. 

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/one-person-killed-another-critically-injured-after-crash-at-cota-entrance-gate

Fucking hell. I used to specialize in Vehicle Rescue/Extrication in the FD. Shit like that scene is one of the reasons I left the fire station & went to Dispatch. Seen enough...

Edited by wood
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28 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

I still don't understand what the driver was attempting to do. Was he intentionally trying to get inside COTA for some purpose, or were they just out fucking around and found out?

I think I heard somewhere that he was headed inside to do some kind of work.

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Quote

Police said a 2020 Dodge Ram approached a large, metal gate with two separate swing arms at the entrance of COTA. One of the gates was blocking the entrance, and the other was slightly open. The Dodge tried to maneuver in between the two metal gate arms, when one arm entered the cab of the truck and hit Nelson, police said.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/travis-county/apd-identifies-man-killed-in-aug-14-gate-crash-at-circuit-of-the-americas/

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 minutes ago, Mittens said:

Anyone know anything about damage from weather out at COTA?  Bike Night was supposed to start up again tonight.  

 

Yeah sounds pretty weird to me. I have friends out there who said there was nothing they knew of. There were some light showers running around yesterday, but I didn't hear about anything at all significant.

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I enjoyed attending the NASCAR weekend at COTA and I'm glad to be able to count it as an experience, but don't feel it necessary to repeat.  Even with perfect weather, it just wouldn't be my thing.

That godawful "stage" approach of stoppage multiple times per race  to reset the grid just completely wore me out.  It killed all race momentum and enthusiasm.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
45 minutes ago, faps said:

Anyone doing MotoGP this weekend? Gonna be a wet one. I have some PTSD from the 2015 F1 race still..

Any word on the pavement surface repairs holding up?

Yeah that was a miserable Friday and Saturday for sure.  At least it cleared up for the race on Sunday.  I think this weekend is going to be similar.

NASCAR this past spring was actually even wetter than 2015 F1 believe it or not.  It never cleared on Sunday.  Actually, it got worse.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, faps said:

Anyone doing MotoGP this weekend? Gonna be a wet one. I have some PTSD from the 2015 F1 race still..

Any word on the pavement surface repairs holding up?

Yeah I'll probably be out there Friday ... with my raincoat.

Re: the pavement, much of what they repaved in December & January of 2020 deformed again & had to be smoothed & repaved two more times. Where it appears to have helped the most are the straights, which is important for MotoGP. The esses & the whole east side are still a mess. I hope the problems NASCAR had with the standing water on the back straight don't come up again for the bikes. That didn't seem to be nearly as much of a thing before the resurfacing. I wonder if they didn't put enough of a crown in it. 

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Anyone doing MotoGP this weekend? Gonna be a wet one. I have some PTSD from the 2015 F1 race still..
Any word on the pavement surface repairs holding up?

Just got hooked up with some tickets. Never been.

Tips/ suggestions? Thinking of taking my two kids - assume it’s no problem?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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8 hours ago, El Tri said:

6 and 9. Thinking of heading out Sunday for a few hours, not the entire 3 days

Yeah the little ones just don't typically have the interest or stamina to last all day. My oldest is 17 and is a complete racing fanatic, and even he couldn't really take all day out there until he was 12 or 13.

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Translation: 

Be careful with this, it is important. Dorna has asked that at least it be resurfaced from Turn 2 to Turn 10. The circuit has responded that it does not want to resurface and it seems that it will not return to CoTA next season

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