Bradley Wittlief

Review of Road America

I made plans to be at the SCCA runoffs months ago ...

I made plans to be at the SCCA runoffs months ago 10/9 to 10/11. It has been a good weekend up till now. On Friday the weather was pretty good, Saturday it was cool and windy. The fall colors have been great. The racing has been great and so has the food, I got to meet and talk with one of the winning drivers (GT-1). I only have a couple of complaints. First, there is only 2 of their concession stands open and both are inside the track (Gearbox and John the Baptist), so if you want some of that great track food you better park a little close to that area or you have to walk there. That kind of limits where you can watch the races from. I guess you could bring your own food or even cook something there. I have been coming to this track for a very long time but first time at the runoffs. They did have a few big TV screens (turn 1, turn 3, turn 5) so you could watch the race from any of those corners and not miss anything. The track announcers that were doing the races kept talking about the food and where you could get it but most of the ones they talked about were closed. I can't believe that they didn't know that. Second, on Friday I parked inside the track near turn 14 by the Gearbox concession stand, so on Saturday I had planned to park in the same spot because it was near turns 5 and 14 and it seemed to be a good spot. Well on Saturday I got turned away by a track employee when I started to turn left to go under the tunnel that leads to the spot I wanted to park at. He said I could walk there but not park there. So that was a bit frustrating for me. I guess that the track wanted to limit where you could park because it was going to be a busy day. I had to park outside the track near turn 14 and walk over the bridge to get to the same spot I was at on Friday. I then did see some of the same people parked on Saturday that I park near on Friday. So now I don't know if they found a way to get by track personnel or if they had the wrist band that allowed them to park there. I had left knee surgery a few years ago and have a handicapped sticker allowing me to park a bit closer to things so having to walk to the same place on Saturday that I parked on Friday was a bit upsetting. I'm still having a good time how can you not when you are at Road America.