CORKSCREWED (part 2)

The next year (2006) managed to top the first. Sure getting in was easy, it always is. But getting out was absurd. If you wanted to bring a car in you had to pay an additional $50. (What, and no valet?!) This was to encourage the use of motorcycles which is fine if you live within a few hundred miles as I don't. The rest of us poor slobs were left to try our luck on the shuttle bus heading back to the parking lot at Fort Ord. Keep in mind that the heat was insane that weekend. It was 111 degrees on Saturday and 106 on Sunday. The water main had broken (probably sabotaged by the makers of Aquafina) and people were not in the best mood.

To add to things, the track was coming apart in chunks and the newly added bumps made it even more embarrassing for those of us who care about these kind of things. (America's finest track my ass.) Here we are trying to show the world our best effort and this is all we can come up with? Can we not hire the folks from Europe who know how to construct a track properly? Not only was the surface falling apart, but let's face it, Laguna Seca is a glorified go-kart track. The bikes don't get out of 4th gear EVER since there's really no straightwaway to speak of. Barber has the same problem and they had to repave their surface as well. (Although much credit must go to Mr. Barber for doing what he could.)

Back to the exit strategy from hell part 2...

Let's just say it was a free-for-all to get to the buses. How many thousands I don't know but if you did a little math. Calculating how many could fit on a bus, add the time that bus takes to go to the remote parking lot and back, factor in the time that these buses waited until all the buses in line were filled, instead of heading out once they were, take in to account that several buses were not filled to capacity due to the fact that passenger traffic control couldn't count how many people were allowed onto the bus even though the maximum capacity was printed on the side of the bus, multiply that by how many people opted out of the $50 parking pass and you've got a hell of a lot of people. Then let there be no real order to the lines to get on the bus. Hundreds of people were just jamming right to the front and it was a hot and sticky mess after weather like that.

My partner and I waited for an hour and forty in the line which moved no where. This, after circumnavigating the race course to avoid the massive traffic jam trying to cross the track bridge. More bottlenecks than a California vineyard. We retreated and found a place to sit and grab a beer and just wait. After a good hour and a half we went to have a look at the lines, hoping to see some progress. Nope. The line was better organized. But now it stretched for a half mile, all the way down the hill and wrapping around next to the service road. No shuttle for us.

Time for Plan B. We got on one of the last city buses leaving for Carmel. We certainly lucked out there since we might still be waiting at the track to this day. We took that back knowing that it would only be a mile walk back to where we were staying. But it was a chance worth taking. As providence would have it. Someone hit the stop button out on the highway and we got out at as good a spot as we were going to get. We then hiked it up the winding cliff road to the house carrying our gear. We then grabbed a shower and borrowed a car to drive back to Fort Ord to get our rental car which was another hour round trip. And our adventure was done. Sure, this all might sound like a lot of whining, etc. But how in the hell can Jerez de la Frontera host 200,000 fans on site on race day.

Just get your shit together SCRAMP! This year I'll be watching Greg White and the rest of the yokels from the air-conditioned comfort of my humble abode. Go Nicky, and Colin, and John, and Kenny Jr.