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Posted (edited)
On 12/29/2024 at 11:30 AM, gofuckyourself said:

My kids (13 and 15) got into F1 in a big way this past year. Their interest in it has even sparked my interest.

As part of that they love COTA go karting and we've gone every month since the summer.

But now they're now only allowing 16 and over with a valid driver's license to race the go carts, starting Jan 1st.

Just amazingly idiotic on so many levels.

As an alternative, K1 is aight. Not as big or fast of a track, but they tend to maintain their karts better than COTA does. Still not great maintenance there, but COTA does a terrible job with them, esp for what you pay. You never know what kinda shitty kart you'll get at COTA. Last 2 or 3 times I went to COTA with my boys, we all got wildly varying karts every race, with different levels of power, steering out of whack pulling hard to one side, shitty brakes, etc, etc.

Edited by wood
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Posted

I used to race over at K1 all the time, I think I have over 100 races there. Stopped going after the karts kept getting shittier and shittier, also had a clearly drunk guy crash into me. To hear that COTA karts are worse is sad but not surprising, considering what thread we are in.

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Posted
12 hours ago, faps said:

I used to race over at K1 all the time, I think I have over 100 races there. Stopped going after the karts kept getting shittier and shittier, also had a clearly drunk guy crash into me. To hear that COTA karts are worse is sad but not surprising, considering what thread we are in.

Yeah and it's a shame because COTA's track is actually not bad at all once you get away from all the dumbasses that don't have a clue how to drive it.

I wonder what the Andretti place in SA is like. Anyone been?

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

LOL Bobby thinks a parking garage will help COTA's ingress/egress/parking situation. https://www.mysanantonio.com/lifestyle/article/circuit-americas-parking-garage-20096582.php

:jagsguy:

When it comes to parking for sporting events, everyone with any sense avoids parking garages like the plague. The only location I can think of where a garage will help anything would be in the Paddock, where it won't help the typical fan even a little bit.

Edited by wood
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Posted

I’ll definitely avoid that. Definitely avoid whatever area it connects to. All that space and they are going to waste money on a garage.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I did it once.  I enjoyed hearing those cars around the track, they're quite loud.  But the races themselves are an absolute beating.  The "stage" racing is the worst invention since New Coke.

But if you actually enjoy NASCAR racing then you'll probably like it.

  • Like 1
Posted
12 hours ago, Updawg said:

I’ve never gone out here for nascar but I assume tickets will get cheap closer to the race. I want to check it out this year

last year I would have been better off buying a weekend pass on Thursday/Friday instead of buying individual tickets the day of the races on Saturday and Sunday morning 

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Posted

I need to look at the schedule. My kid just got into racing so want to check out the track. We aren’t nascar fans though. I’ve been to almost every F1 weekend and prefer Fri and sat. Is it the same with nascar weekend?

Posted

Don't even bother with Friday.  Saturday there won't be much of a crowd at all so you can sit wherever you want.  Sunday will be better but nowhere near F1 levels - you can still sit in whatever stands you want depending upon your budget.   If you go general admission you can still sit pretty much anywhere but the better spots in various sections will be gone early.   They are running the shorter course this year so there will be more laps and more action in front of wherever you choose to sit.  

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Posted (edited)

Yeah Sunday last year really wasn't even close to MotoGP level ... and damn, the yellows between the stages are just brutal. So stupid.

ETA: Oh, and they'll likely restrict you from a huge portion of the track again this year, which sucks balls. Some of the best action last year was in parts of the track inaccessible to the fans.

Edited by wood
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Posted
9 hours ago, wood said:

Yeah Sunday last year really wasn't even close to MotoGP level ... and damn, the yellows between the stages are just brutal. So stupid.

ETA: Oh, and they'll likely restrict you from a huge portion of the track again this year, which sucks balls. Some of the best action last year was in parts of the track inaccessible to the fans.

Yup, so stupid that they've been running the whole track but only allow access to part of it.

But I guess if, as @Bill Brasky says, they're running the shorter course this year, then restricting access to the long end of the track won't be as impactful.

Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, utee94 said:

Yup, so stupid that they've been running the whole track but only allow access to part of it.

But I guess if, as @Bill Brasky says, they're running the shorter course this year, then restricting access to the long end of the track won't be as impactful.

Oh yeah, I forgot they were talking about doing that. It'll help keep the cars in front of the fan-accessible parts of the track more. The only series iirc that's ever done that was V8SC, and it did that, but it also seemed too short, and left a lot of people wishing they had run the full circuit for at least one of their races that weekend. 

Edited by wood
Posted

I was out hunting the weekend of V8SC unfortunately. That was the first actual event at COTA wasn't it, or was it the Grand Am weekend?

COTA needs a damn expressway connection to SH130 with direct connectors. That is the only way to help ingress and egress. Or a rail line running out there, but that has an even less chance of happening than the direct connection.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Bill Brasky said:

Oh yeah I wasn't doubting you, just citing you. :)

And yes they definitely ran the shorter course for the Ozzie V8s, and I definitely wished they'd run the full course.

Having seen NASCAR run the full course, I think I'd be pretty disappointed in watching them run the abbreviated version.

 

 

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Posted

I think the long course is better on TV and the short course better in person.   For Nascar if you sit in the right spot in the turn 12 bleachers you can see ~80% of the turns which is pretty good for a road course.   I'm wanting to check out the turn 2 general admission area as well to see how much can be viewed from there 

Posted (edited)
On 2/14/2025 at 11:29 AM, faps said:

I was out hunting the weekend of V8SC unfortunately. That was the first actual event at COTA wasn't it, or was it the Grand Am weekend?

COTA needs a damn expressway connection to SH130 with direct connectors. That is the only way to help ingress and egress. Or a rail line running out there, but that has an even less chance of happening than the direct connection.

That would definitely be nice, but the biggest problems with ingress and egress are on the property at COTA itself. And a rail line, as someone mentioned on the Autosport board the other day, will never make any sense as long as it would be just COTA at the end of the line. There are only a few days out of the year that COTA would actually need it.

The biggest help imho would be COTA getting its shit together on race days, not skimping on buses, on-site personnel and traffic control, cooperating with the neighbors who sell parking, like Daytona and IMS do, instead of trying to shut them down, etc. Hell, Daytona arranges free parking right across the road from the NASCAR T4 entrance for people who don't want to pay for on-site parking (which is typically not crazy expensive to begin with). We parked there last year, at the mall. This year my kid parked there again and slept in his car instead of going to a hotel. He said the track had also provided portapotties in the lot for people who might be staying in their cars. Bobby would rather set himself on fire than do anything like that.

Oh, and the first event was the 2012 USGP. MotoGP was next in April 2013, and then V8SC in May. Here's some typical COTA fuckshittery though: COTA has a page with a history of the events they've held. On it, they list V8SC  as a support race of the Pirelli World Challenge weekend. LMAO WTF? It was the other way around. It was all billed as a V8SC race weekend, with PWC as a support series. Even wikipedia shows PWC as a support race for V8SC that weekend. PWC has its own weekends here now. I guess this is COTA's lame attempt to make a current race weekend seem like a bigger deal than it actually is, and maybe also to diminish V8SC after they pulled out of COTA.

https://circuitoftheamericas.com/timeline/#2012-2

Edited by wood
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Posted
On 2/15/2025 at 7:07 AM, utee94 said:

Yeah the Ozzie V8s were absolutely the headliner that weekend.

Yeah, just more of the usual COTA revisionism. I guess they're still pissed at Supercars for pulling out before the money shot.

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