{"id":957,"date":"2005-07-31T14:04:24","date_gmt":"2005-07-31T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/?p=957"},"modified":"2005-07-31T14:04:24","modified_gmt":"2005-07-31T19:04:24","slug":"prix-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/2005\/07\/31\/prix-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Prix games"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been stopping by long enough, you know the three things I’m apt
\nto write about: being outdoors, listening to rock ‘n’ roll and gawking at cool
\ncars. I got a chance to experience all three Saturday in downtown San Jose,
\nwhich is having its first-ever Grand Prix race this weekend. <\/p>\n

The car race has to be outdoors, and only cool cars are allowed to race. That
\nmuch is obvious. The rock ‘n’ roll connection is more subtle, until it, too,
\nbecomes obvious. I noticed it as soon as I passed through the gate and started
\nwalking toward the race course. A high-pitched roar approaches from the right,
\ngetting louder and more intense as the car gets closer. The deafening blast
\nhits its climax just after the car passes (sound traveling slower than light,
\nyou know) and I notice an adrenaline surge that feels exactly like standing
\nin the front row of a really loud rock concert when the rhythm guitarist is
\npounding out his power chords. <\/p>\n

That realization guaranteed I’d get my 35 bucks worth, though I never saw any
\nactual races — just race practice and qualifying runs (there was only one race
\nSaturday and I had to be somewhere else when it started … naturally I didn’t
\nknow this until after I’d bought my ticket and had been inside the race grounds
\nfor a half-hour). The real race happens today, but watching it is hardly necessary.
\nIn fact it’s slightly beside the point.<\/p>\n

The best place to see a grand prix race — if you care about the actual competition
\n— is from a couch or barstool, safe from the noise, the sun, the exhaust fumes,
\nand secure in the knowledge that well-informed commentators will keep you apprised
\nof all critical developments and will provide replays of the really cool crashes.
\nYou get none of this at the actual race; either you pay double for a grandstand
\nseat and you’re rooted in one place (and missing nine-tenths
\nof the action), or you buy a general-admission ticket and you wander along the
\nrace course, realizing you can’t see squat through the fence and would’ve been
\nbetter off ponying up for a grandstand ticket. <\/p>\n

Race fans come to the track anyway because a big race is a big event, like
\nFourth of July fireworks. Happens once a year and they go for the experience
\nof being there. And their brains will store the experience of the guitar-chord
\nadrenaline rush to provide a little context when they’re watching races from
\nthe couch or barstool. <\/p>\n

At least that’s what I think. I took my camera long, of course; the highlights:\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Race organizers set up a bunch of grandstands along the race course,
\nwhich goes for just over a mile through downtown San Jose. This is one of the
\nsmaller sets of bleachers near one of the sharp turns. Racers can do two interesting
\nthings on turns — pass other racers or crash — hence the necessity of having
\npeople nearby to watch it happen. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The fence is the permanent reality of having a general-admission ticket. People
\nin the grandstands have giant-screen televisions to keep ’em up on the action
\nbut here at ground level, all you can see is cars ripping past at impossible
\nspeeds. This is one of the first cars I saw in a sports car-class practice run.
\nIn the sports car class, the cars are pretty much like the ones you’d see on
\ncity streets, but with the interiors ripped out and the mufflers removed. They’re
\nplenty loud but not nearly as fast as the open-wheel racers in the grand prix
\nclass. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The litter-intensive underside of the main grandstand. Imagine what it looks
\nlike on race day. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The second event was a practice run by "vintage" stock cars — ones
\nthat you might’ve seen in the 1980s if you went to NASCAR races back then. The
\nSan Jose track has a long straight-away that takes a mean U-Turn which forces
\nthe cars to slow to a crawl. Normally the cars are zipping by so fast that I
\nhave a hard time getting a picture with a car in it, so I went down to this
\nturn to see if my luck would improve. The car’s close enough that you could
\nalmost spit on the windshield from here, which is one of the nifty things about
\nbuying a general-admission ticket. The cars pass right next to you, something
\nyou’ll never experience in the bleachers. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

One of the many giant-screen TVs placed strategically around the race course.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Hey look, it’s somebody sitting on a Mercury News box! (It’s Friday’s paper,
\nalas.) You can’t really see it in this picture, but the Knight Ridder sign above
\nthe Knight Ridder Building is also at the top of the frame. (Knight Ridder is
\nthe heavenly father of the Mercury News and many other fine newspapers that
\nyour grandparents read). See, the Merc is always in the business of providing
\na better perspective on the news, even at the Grand Prix! <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All men know this and yet they are powerless to act upon this knowledge.<\/p>\n

(The T-shirt says "If it has wheels or a skirt, you can’t afford it.")<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

After awhile the really fast grand prix cars show up — these are qualifying
\nruns for Sunday’s main event. Normally you have to shoot though two rows of
\nfences so the pictures aren’t particularly satisfying, but there was one break
\nin the main track fence here, so I had only one fence to shoot through. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The view improved a bit when I figured out I could rest my camera on top of
\nthe fence here and aim it down at the track. Then the trick was to time it so
\nthat a car was in the frame when I clicked on the shutter button. This is the
\nbest picture I got, which sorta sums up the difficulty in photographing car
\nraces: It’s all about the motion, and photography is all about stopping the
\nmotion for a fraction of an instant. Professional photographers have all sorts
\nof tricks to make racing pictures interesting but the first requirement is being
\nnext to the track with a wide range of perspectives. The second requirement
\nis knowing what the hell you’re doing. Lacking both of these prerequisites,
\nI don’t feel so bad that I managed to get one car in the frame out of a dozen
\nattempts. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kids can get a better perspective if they’ve got strong-shouldered grownups
\nto help out. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Because it’s not actually race day, it’s a good time to check out all the exhibits,
\nmost of which have to do with cars. I’m guessing I looked pretty much like this
\nkid the first time I saw a race car up-close. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The ever-popular Cosworth Ford race-car cutaway, with other a couple Ford Mustangs
\nnearby. It’s uncanny how Ford has milked the Mustang mystique for 40 years.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The race goes right next to San Jose’s convention center, which has been filled
\nwith all manner of race-car coolness. Oblivious to all this automotive goodness,
\nkids make good use of the fountain outside the convention center. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the convention center foyer, it’s one of my favorite classic cars: the 1955
\nChevy Nomad two-door. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

In the exhibition hall, it’s wall-to-wall race-car paraphernalia <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Goodyear Eagle racing tires. Ever wonder why race car tires don’t have tread
\nlike your car? It occurred to me awhile back that it’s simple physics: the more
\nrubber in contact with the road, the better the traction. Grooves in a tire
\nmean less rubber against the road, hence less traction. The grooves channel
\nwater away from the tire, making a car safer to drive in the rain. Some races
\nare rain-or-shine events, which obliges pit crews to switch over to "rain"
\ntires, which have those grooves, allowing a measure of safety racing on slick
\ntracks (they still go too fast for common sense, but it wouldn’t be a race otherwise).\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

There’s an inevitable testosterone rush from driving a car fast, offering inevitable
\nmarketing tie-ins. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The Marine Corps’ "chin-up challenge" attracted a bunch of muscular
\nguys. A T-shirt went to anybody who could chin up to this bar 20 times; this
\nguy had a surfer’s build and looked plenty strong enough to do the whole 20.
\nHe quit after five, which made me wonder if he looked down at those Marines
\nstarting to like the looks of him and started wondering if the grand prize was
\nan all-expense-paid trip to Baghdad. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been stopping by long enough, you know the three things I’m apt to write about: being outdoors, listening to rock ‘n’ roll and gawking at cool cars. I got a chance to experience all three Saturday in downtown…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}