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Norris McDonald’s Top Ten auto races, places
Here, in no particular order, are my personal Top Ten best places to watch my Top Ten auto races:
1. The roof of the Fairmont Hotel Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix de Monaco
You have to rent a room in the Fairmont Hotel Monte Carlo (nee the Grand Hotel, nee the Loews Hotel, nee the Train Station – four-night minimum starting at 5,500 Euros) to have roof access but there is no finer place to watch the world’s most famous F1 Grand Prix.
The cars snake down toward you from the Hotel Mirabeau and brake to about 30 miles an hour as they negotiate the hairpin turn immediately below your viewing position. There’s a giant TV screen across the road so you won’t miss anything when the cars are out of sight.
If you have serious connections, you might be able to worm your way into one of the guest rooms below that also face the circuit. But the advantage of the roof is that – so long as you’re careful not to fall into the pool – you can walk around and watch the cars exiting Portier and entering the tunnel (beneath part of the hotel) or leaving the tunnel for the run down to the chicane.
(A friend suggested a yacht in the harbour but I pointed out that you can’t really see any of the race from there because sea level is about six feet below the top of the sea wall. He then suggested a yacht owned by Jarno Trulli, “because when he drops out of the race, as he surely will, he’ll join you for cocktails and fill you in on what’s going on.” I said I’d report back – if ever I sat on a yacht, drinking and talking racing, in the harbour at Monaco, with Jarno Trulli . . . )
2. Stand E Penthouse at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500
The most nerve-wracking, explosive, loud, terrifying moment in all of motorsport is the start of the Indianapolis 500 when 33 open-wheel, open-cockpit cars all going 200 miles an hour scream into Turn 1.
There are many great places at Indianapolis to watch the race but Stand E Penthouse is the best because you can see all the way along the front straight, the pits (you will need binoculars), all of Turn 1, the short stretch to Turn 2 and most of Turn 2 itself.
As is the case at Monaco, there is a giant TV screen on the inside of Turn 1 across from Stand E to keep track of your favourite driver when he (or she) is out of sight.
A bonus is that Stand E Penthouse has a roof, so you likely won’t get sunburned if it’s sunny or wet if it rains.
3. Corner 2 at Mosport International Raceway for the ALMS and other races
You can see wonderful racing at this corner, you can see daring passing and you can see some accidents that are just dillies. And you can have the time of your life. If you are hard up, go see Martin Martinell, the Mayor of Corner 2, and he will give you a bottle of beer.
What separates Corner 2 from challenging corners at other world-class circuits in Europe and the U.S. (Eau Rouge at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium or the Carousel at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course are examples) is that it is tricky difficult and has been giving drivers fits since Mosport opened in 1961.
It's a blind corner that starts just past the crest of a hill. It then drops sharply left and continues downhill into a valley. What makes it particularly challenging is that the camber (banking) of the roadway falls off to the right, rather than the expected left. Known as a reverse camber turn, this means that while the driver is turning left, the weight of the car is pushing it right.
Swiss driver Dimona De Silvestro, who’s now racing in the IZOD IndyCar Series, was bitten by Corner 2 last August while driving in a Formula Atlantic race. Her car flipped over twice but she wasn’t hurt.
Others have not been so lucky.
4. The Hairpin at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal, for the Canadian GP
This was a great place to watch the Grand Prix of Canada before they completely surrounded it with grandstands. The general admission crowd would gather there on race-day morning and many of the girls wore bikinis. It was a perfect world: fast cars and fast women.
Be that as it may, the grandstands – although pricey (as are most of the better viewing spots in this list) – are still worth the money because the hairpin is where the action is during the Grand Prix. If there is going to be a pass, you can bet it will take place at the hairpin.
And it was the scene several years ago of one of the most violent crashes in recent F1 history. Robert Kubica lost control of his BMW-Sauber as he arrived at the hairpin “arena” and it’s a miracle he survived.
There are those who will say the twin grandstands at the first corner afford a better view but with the exception of the start of the race and a couple of dust-ups (Ralf Schumacher’s ka-boomer a number of years ago comes to mind), not all that much happens there.
5. Turn 1 at the Honda Indy Edmonton
Unlike Montreal, where you only see a portion of the circuit (okay, and the pits) from the first turn grandstands, the grandstands at Turn 1 in Edmonton are fantastic because you can see the whole circuit.
Yes, the Honda Indy Edmonton is held on the runways at the City Centre Airport (kind of a throwback to how sports car racing started in Canada just after the Second World War when most of it, if not all, was conducted at abandoned airports) and if you can get a seat high enough in one of the two ‘stands you can see everything, including the pit stops.
The cars come ripping out of Turn 13 and are flat out past the flagstand. They fly into Turn 1 going like crazy and even after they get strung out, the view continues to be outstanding.
And not just for the car race: the air show put on by the pilots from the Canadian Forces base at Cold Lake, Alta., is worth the price of admission and much of the low-level aerobatic flypast comes straight at the Turn 1 grandstands. We’re lucky to get a couple of F-18s to buzz the Honda Indy Toronto; Edmonton gets a squadron.
(Ironically, I’ve just learned that those two grandstands are going to be moved to a location closer to the pits for this year’s race. I’m sure there’s a good reason but it’s a pity because they were the cat’s meow when it came to watching a car race.)
6. Gold Grandstands at the Honda Indy Toronto
Okay, they’re the most expensive seats in the house but they’re the best place to watch the Indy car race through the streets of the CNE.
And don’t take it just from me: None other than Paul Tracy recommends this location.
“I’ve always found the last three corners (of the Honda Indy track at the CNE) to be the most difficult,” says Tracy, “because they're the fastest corners on the track and you're increasing speed in every corner.
“Corners 9, 10 and 11 – you're kind of winding it up and getting faster and faster and the last corner is the quickest corner on the track. So I tell people the best place to sit is right along the pit straight. You can see the last three corners and see all the pit action. You're right there in Thunder Alley, you're close to all the concessions, you're close to where the race cars are at and the pit stops are at so that's the place to be.”
Okay, Paul.
(If you’re wondering how I came to be talking to Paul Tracy about the best place to watch the Honda Indy Toronto, it was before last year’s race and I asked for his advice for a column I was writing. So this was in the paper last year; I’m just recycling it here.)
7. Any first turn seat and/or any fourth turn seat at any oval speedway.
The passing at every speedway you’ll ever go to takes place either going into a turn or coming out of one. That’s why it’s critical to zero in on a seat in the grandstands near Turn 1 or Turn 4. And the higher up, the better.
By the way, if the speedway is dirt, wait till they “work in” the track before heading for that chair in Turn 1. Otherwise, you’ll be showered with clumps of mud, which can be a little disconcerting if you’re carrying a glass of beer with you.
Mud is part of dirt-track racing but it’s not all that much fun to have to filter it through your teeth as you’re quaffing an ale.
8. Grandstand 36 at the end of Shoreline Drive in Long Beach, Calif.
An attraction of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, which started life as a Formula One race in the 1970s and morphed into a CART event, then a Champ Car World Series race and is now part of the IZOD IndyCar Series, is the proximity of the course to the nearby Queen Mary ocean liner that has been tied up there since the late 1960s.
One can stay aboard the Queen Mary (and drift off to sleep pretending you’re sailing to India) and walk over to the circuit and enter through a gate near the end of Shorline Drive where the cars come toward you at more than 200 miles an hour and then gear down to about 55 for a sharp left-hand turn around the fountain.
The speed difference is amazing, the tightness of the racing exhilarating and the blueness of the sky and the ocean other-worldly.
And if you get too hot (the ocean breezes are usually enough to cool you off, but . . .) the air conditioning aboard the Queen is just a short hop away.
9. The back grandstand at Talladega Superspeedway for the Talladega 500
Okay, this is not a serious suggestion but a Top Ten list must be democratic and can’t concentrate solely on locations that appeal only to people who wash.
The back grandstand at ‘Dega is another planet when the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars are in action. The people, many in varying stages of undress (and we’re not only talking about females), drink, smoke, cuss – usually at each other but sometimes at the racers – and generally raise more than a little hell.
For years, there was a place in the infield near Turn One at Indianapolis called the “Snake Pit.” If you went to the Indy 500 and wanted to get out alive, you didn’t go there. If you went there anyway, it’s said you would never be the same again.
Same with “the Bog” at Watkins Glen. It wasn’t a race weekend at the Glen during the Sixties and Seventies without at least one car being torched in “the Bog.”
Both the “Snake Pit” and “the Bog” are now distant memories, as will the back grandstand at Talladega, eventually. Somebody will be killed or seriously injured as the result of the antics back there and the authorities will step in.
Meantime, if you want to illustrate your annoyance at Jeff Gordon, or Dale Earnhardt Jr., or Danica Patrick (soon) by throwing a full can of beer in his or her general direction the next time he/she drives past, the back ‘stand at ‘Dega’s for you.
(Want to know the difference between the “Snake Pit” or “the Bog” and the back grandstand at Talladega? Signs held up at the first two would say, “Show us your t—s.” The signs at Talladega say “Show us your teeth.”)
10. Your basement and a 43-inch plasma TV for any motor sport
Going to a car race, be it the Honda Indy Toronto, the Grand Prix of Canada at Montreal, or the Daytona 500 in Florida, can be a blast.
But if you really want to see the race – Indy, the NHRA Winternationals, what have you? – the coverage on the tube is the way to go.
Sure, you’ll miss out on the noise and the colour and the lightning speed of the racing cars. But you won’t miss a thing that happens in the competition and, if something does happen, as always happens in a car race, they’ll replay it so many times you’ll see it in your dreams.
The washroom is close by (it’s probably clean), as is the refrigerator (the beer costs a lot less).
It’s really the best of all possible worlds.
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