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Prepuce of Doom

By Prepuce of Doom
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utee94

utee94 15835

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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.

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Bill Brasky
Bill Brasky

I am okay with any result that causes Hamilton and Mercedes to lose.   Their act is old.   

RamjetFDO
RamjetFDO
wood
wood

That was just Gunther Steiner.

wood

wood 11230

Posted
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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?

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utee94

utee94 15835

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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. :)

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wood

wood 11230

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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.

 

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utee94

utee94 15835

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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.

 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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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?  

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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.

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wood

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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.

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wood

wood 11230

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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.

 
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wood

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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...

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Yama Yak Yachtzi

Yama Yak Yachtzi 48

Posted
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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 by Yama Yak Yachtzi
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utee94

utee94 15835

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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... :)

 

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utee94

utee94 15835

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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.

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utee94

utee94 15835

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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!

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wood

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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.

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wood 11230

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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/

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wood

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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?

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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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