More Race Pics!

These pictures were all taken from various points around the track. We traveled all over the 3.7 mile circuit to find the best vantage points. I think the two best vantage points were in the vicinity of the hairpin turn and a pair of turns that began with a 90 degree left followed by a slightly wider left turn. These first pictures are from the straightaway leading to the hairpin.

This one is unintentionally soft in focus, but I kind of like it. You can see the heat from the road/exhausts shimmering in the sun.

There were four classes of race car running on the track at the same time. The cars styled like the DHL car above are in either the LMP1 or LMP2 class. The cars like this Panoz below or the many Porches are running in the GT1 or GT2 class. The GT classes are production based cars (ie. based on cars you could actually buy if you had the money) and were much slower. The difference in speed created some exciting moments as the LMP cars continually had to pass the GT cars to make good time. This led to a few bottlenecks in some of the corners. By the way, it's tough to catch a 150 mph+ car on camera.

This is a view of the main straight through the start/finish line. The bridge with the subtle Mobil 1 ad is actually a pedestrian bridge over the track. We went through it a few times (and others like it). The whole thing vibrates briefly when a car flies past underneath.

And these cars are LOUD. Especially the Panoz a few pictures above. The quietest cars were the Audi Turbo Diesels (yes, you read diesel). You could barely hear them with all the noise made by the other vehicles. They were impressive and went on to take 1st and 2nd by 9 laps. This was a great trip. I had loads of fun taking pictures and admiring all the expensive cars. It was a great first race experience.