IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma County

Yesturday I went to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma to watch the IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma County. It was my first time at an Indycar race and it went pretty well! We left at around 9:30 and headed to Sonoma. Raceday traffic was pretty crazy and it took about half an hour to actually get from the entry gate to the parking lot. After that we had to catch a shuttle bus to take us to the grandstand. By then the Indy Lights race was under way. Our seats were up near the top, so we not only got a good view of half the track, but also shade from the premium suites above us.

After the Indy Lights race, we walked around the track a bit and found out that Audi had about a dozen of R8s and you could actually sit in them! Sure, these cars look like big VW Beetles but they’re fast looking VW Beetles :D. After that we bought some food (at ripoff prices) and then headed back up to our seats to watch the pre-race ceremonies.

First they had an airshow with four L39 Jet fighters doing crazy stunts. The stupid announcer tried to play up the danger by pretending that they’re about to crash and stuff, but I had earplugs on so I ignored most of it.

Next they had driver introductions. Today’s field was pretty large with 27 cars! The crowd probably didn’t know any of the drivers because they only cheered for Danica and Helio…

Then it was time for the national anthem. The National Guard was present at the race and they launched a barrage of cannons after they sung the anthem. It was the first time I’ve ever heard live cannon fire and boy was it loud! Right when they finished that they had yet another fighter flyby, this time with 2 F16s and 2 F18s.

Ah, time for the race. As usual, team Penske and Andretti Green were pretty high up in the starting grid. What was unusual was that the Ganassi guys were pretty far back. I think they started at around mid pack with a bunch of Ex-Champ Car guys ahead of them. During the roll of, AJ Foyt IV stalled his car and couldn’t get it started. The crowd tried to cheer them on and they finally managed to get it fired just before the green flag waved. Sadly, they were forced to start half a lap down because he wasn’t able to catch up to the end of the grid.

The race ended up much like a Formula One race. Pit strategy was the dominant theme here because there was only one Saftey Car period when Marty Roth spun himself into the weeds… In the end, Helio Castroneves won the race from pole and his teammate Ryan Briscoe finished second a few seconds behind. Overall it was a good race, but I heard a lot of the fans afterwards whining about how boring it had been because it was a relatively clean race.

Now you might think that this would be the end of the post, and boy you’d be wrong. Getting home was another story within itself. First thing we had to do was waiting in line for the shuttle buses to take us back to the parking lot. Since everyone parked in the same area, 90% of everyone was in the same line for the same shuttle. We were in line out in the hot sun for over 30 minutes before we managed to get on one of the shuttles. Once we got into the car, we had to sit in traffic just to get out of the place. The organizers diverged traffic into two directions with some heading on Highway 37 East and some heading West. Since we’re in the East Bay, either direction would’ve worked since the bridges connected back to the same place. Unfortunately, we weren’t expecting that there would be heavy traffic on the 101 near San Rafael. Everyone slowed to a crawl and we were in traffic for nearly two hour before we could get on the Richmond bridge. Once we got back on the 80, we were YET AGAIN stuck in traffic because of all the people moving into UC Berkeley that day. Finally, we ended up back home at around 8:00PM, two and a half hours after the race had ended.

Although getting home was quite miserable, I had a lot of fun that day. Of course, that was expected because of my love for racing. Despite a lack of passing or crashing, I still enjoyed being able to experience a race amongst thousands of other fans and being up close to the drivers and cars. I would like to congratulate Helio Castroneves and team Penske for winning the race as well as the organizers at Infineon Raceway for making the event an enjoyable experience.