I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix yesterday after the Mazda Master Tech Competition and it was great. I took the bus from the Long Beach Harbor, and noticed once we got closer to the GP that it was going to be a party scene. There were a lot of twenty years olds. One person was complaining on her cell phone that there were people with “flip flops and cowboy hats.”
It took me a while to get to my seat and I saw the last half of the Champ car qualifying. It was loud, but I brought ear plugs. It was cool because I had great Grandstand seats facing the Long Beach Convention Center. It was facing a straight away and when they passed I could see them turn a little. I watch the Indy 500, so the Atlantic cars were similar in look and sound, at least to me. After that there was drifting, but since I was on a straight away it was really boring. However, even with the big screen, where I was able to see them drift, it was still boring. I only watched about 5 minutes of that and then checked out the scene. There was a lifestyle convention, food stands and trinket stands. I didn’t buy anything. Then I went to the American Le Mans race. It was my favorite race and better than expected. There were Audis, Porches, Ferraris and a Mazda! The great thing about the race was that there were so many different types of cars and sounds. Some were open wheel some weren’t. I was amazed at how quiet the Audis were.
I got the tickets free from work, and looking back at all the free trips and tickets I got throughout my career, this was the single best free event. The best trip was last fall to Atlanta, because it was a week long and I got to see my friend in Atlanta. However, for events, this beats the Sun Microsystem’s Java event in S.F.