The best race you've ever seen., anywhere. Options

[rpoz-29]

I read the F1 vs. IRL vs. NASCAR vs. Touring Car debate and I wondered, what is the best race you have ever seen? SCCA , IMSA, AMA etc. Anything pros, amatuers, bikes, boats, whatever. In person, on TV, a participant etc. Lets hear from you guys.

[sgarnett]

Personally, I like the early, creative stage of a new grassroots class before it gets too structured. In other words, when it's nothing but privateers with a welder, a spare motor, and too much time on their hands. In general, I'm talking about the kind of wacky off-season local events the Speed Channel used to carry.

At the other extreme, someday I'm going to have to make a pilgrimage to the Belgian Grand Prix.

Heck, if I was offered a ride in a local/regional riding mower race I'd take it in a heartbeat.

I just discovered the wooden roller-coaster style gocart tracks (I'd only been on the slicktracks or mini-road-course type before). What a hoot (unless the rev limiter is set too conservatively (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) )!!! :drive:

[roy]

DTMtouring car back in the 80's and real early 90's when Camaros and Mustangs were taking it to Europes best. that is until the rules got too restrictive for V8's.

[patred]

The 2003 British Grand Prix. Crazy dude running out on track, great passing and my boy Rubens Barrichello ended up winning.

Another of my favorite F1 races was the '99 French Grand Prix. I think it was '99 ... it was Barrichello's last year with Stewart. He qualified on pole in the rain, and it was raining for the race, too. RB tried in vain to hold off Mika Hakkinen then Michael Schumacher. Then with a few laps left to go, Heinz-Harold Frentzen (in a Jordan!) suddenly was in the lead because he didn't make a "final" pit stop, and he ended up winning!

Another great was a British Touring Car race from '99 (I think). Nigel Mansell was doing a guest spot with the Ford Mondeo team. This was another race influenced by the wet stuff. In the first race, he crashed HARD into a tire barrier. So hard that he was a bit woozy climbing out of the car. He made it for the afternoon race but was DFL on the grid because of his finishing position. By turn 1, he was still DFL. But he nudged and "rubbed" his way through the field and eventually took the lead!! But he was eventually passed and finished 3rd or 4th. Still have the tape lying around somewhere. Great stuff!

The post-race interview was great. Mansell had scraped paint and leaned on some of his competitors to take the lead. Instead of fisticuffs like what you see with NASCAR, Mansell was laughing it up with Derrick Warwick and another driver like they just had the most fun in their lives.

Pat

[slowTA]

I'm going to have to vote for the ALMS race at RFK stadium a few years ago. Befor ethen all I had been to were a few Nascar races where you wwatch the crews from behind a wrought iron fence 50 feet from the action, then you watch the race in some growded gradstand where you can only see what's in front of you. At the ALMS race you could wander through the paddock, take a tour of the number 3 and 4 Corvette trailers, get run over by celebrities driving around, get close enough to touch the cars and talk to the crew some, and get driver's autographs.

It was great because there were a ton of different series running the same weekend. I can't remember squat about the races except for the fact that Lou was there and I got his autograph before he was punted into the wall where the marshals promptly towed his car into the opposite wall!! That and the SCCA guys ran half their race under caution because they kept wrecking.

[prockbp]

my favorite races are the couple of road races that nascar does.. i think those are really fun to watch, the action is non-stop


it's pretty hard to beat a spec-miata race... if you get a chance to watch 20 or 30 spec miatas run around a road course, make sure you don't miss it

[rpoz-29]

Good responses, and pretty varied. Mine woulf have to be a motorcycle race from Daytona I saw on TV. The class was for twin cylinder bikes, and I have no idea of the other rules. There was a factory Cagiva rider and a privateer on a Harley going back and forth for the last 5-10 laps of the race. The Harley started to smoke on up shifts, and got worse as the race went on. He eventually won. The Cagiva rider a real sportsman about it, and had nothing but good to say about the American. The Harley rider was from Georgia and displayed equal class although amazed he had won. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[sgarnett]

I'm not really a big fan of motorcycle racing, but when I'm jonesin' for a race and there's nothing else on, I'll watch it. A few highlights:

One that stood out (Motorcycle Grand Prix, I think) was on a day of highly variable weather. There was no clear choice between wet and dry tires (screwed if you do, screwed if you don't) so some teams split the difference by running wets at one end and dry at the other. It seemed to be 50:50 on which tire went at which end. What a hoot! Everyone on the track had at least one wrong choice on at least one end of the bike, and the handling balance was changing dramatically as the weather changed.

There was also some footage of a guy who totally blew/shredded/lost a rear tire at 150+ and managed to keep the bike up (as he crossed grass, then pavement, then grass, then ...) until he got it under 50 . He finally ran out of room and had to lay it down, but he walked away. He must be one heck of a driver on TWO tires (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Then there was the leader who had to lay his bike down and slide off the track to avoid an accident in front of him. He wanted to force a red flag so he could get his bike back to the pits and repaired, so he jumped up, ran back onto the track, and laid down in the line. I'm fairly sure he was penalized in some way (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[robz71lm7]

my favorite races are the couple of road races that nascar does.. i think those are really fun to watch, the action is non-stop

I love those. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup.gif)

[bubba353z]

I don't have a best - but a most memorable ending. I don't remember the exact year (I'm getting old), but it was the CART event Michigan.

Max Papis had replaced Bobby Rahal in the Miller Lite car. Max had absolutely dominated the race (Team Rahal really had the Hanford device figured out) and basically could pull away at will from the rest of the pack.

On the last pit stop there was a technical problem with the fuel rig / sensors, and they didn't get all of the fuel in the car. On the last lap, on the back stretch, he ran out of fuel. Max coasted it across the line (about 7th place) and made an immediate left turn across the grass - parking it perpendicular to the pit wall.

Max got out of the car, and sat on the wall in front of his car. He just sat there for about 5 minutes, head in his hands - not even bothering to take his helmet off. A few of his crew came down to talk to him, but he just sat there - heartbroken.

I was at the race, and my seats were right across from where he stopped. It wasn't until I got home that I heard the in-car and found out what happened. The emotion in his voice was obvious - I felt for him. Max later got his first win, but that one should have been it.

[Bald54]

My most memorable race was the 1965 Indy 500. At the time I was an eleven year old kid whose hero was Jimmy Clark. I can rember at the time my dad was about 2 months away from dying of colon cancer, when our neighbor took me with him to the race. I can still picture in my mind, images of that British racing green with yellow accents Lotus ripping down the back stretch. That was the nail in the coffin for the traditional front engined roadsters of the era. Even AJ Foyt admits that Clark was one of the most talented drivers ever.

[AllZWay]

A few best races I have seen are:

1999 Nascar race at Talledega - Dale Earnhardt won. This race had you standing on your feet for just about the entire race. 40+ cars nose to tail, door to door the entire time with many near major wrecks. My addrenaline was running high just sitting in the stand watching.

Several IRL races at Texas Motor Speedway with similiar effects as the Nascar race above.

Last year and this years 24 hours of Daytona - both very good.

Most all Nascar Bristol night races are exciting to watch, but the one that really sticks with me is the one where Dale Earnhardt spun Terry Labonte to win and Earnhardt used that catch phrase... "I just meant to rattle his cage." The fans were booing and Earnhardt almost looked embarrassed.

But some of my favorite racing is the local dirt track races every week. Guaranteed to be exciting every week.

[Mericet]

In my marshalling days at Kyalami, I saw a lot of good racing. The Group N (similar to Showroom Stock) races were always good, close racing with lots of excitement (especially if someone got everything wrong in our corner. Also worth mentioning was the Wesbank Modifieds where the top class was ex-IMSA spec cars. One locally built car was a Mazda MX-6 with a 4-rotor LeMans motor!

But some of the best racing was in karting. Specifically the 60cc Junior class.

[2000Z-71]

I gotta' say the 1979 Daytona 500. That was the last lap incident between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison that ended up with both cars in the grass and both drivers in a fistfight with Richard Petty going on to win. Since then I've always been a fan of NASCAR. I know rednecks driving around in circles. But to me the appeal is that the drivers actually have personalities.

[35th_Anniversary...]

Winston Cup

86 500 - Driver from my hometown won

2000 Pocono race - June or July? was run on Monday. Jeremy Mayfield nudged Dale Earnhardt out of the groove for the win on the last corner. Dasle flipped him off on the cooldown lap. Later in the interview he said he told him he was number one.

Watkins Glen race was pretty good a couple of years ago... Jeff Gordon got spun out in turn 1 of the first lap Video

Plenty of other good memories from NASCAR races all the way back into the early eighties.

[AllZWay]

2000 Pocono race - June or July? was run on Monday. Jeremy Mayfield nudged Dale Earnhardt out of the groove for the win on the last corner. Dasle flipped him off on the cooldown lap. Later in the interview he said he told him he was number one.

I almost listed that Pocono race. Earnhardt handled it pretty good and Mayfield used Earnhardt's tag line..." I was just trying to rattle his cage." (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup.gif)

[2000Z-71]

I've also got to add that I really enjoy watching the NASCAR Sonoma race on Fox. They've really done some great stuff in their coverage with their cameras. Year before last they had cameras mounted in the footwells of a few different cars. They would do a split screen showing the car on the track and the driver's footwork at the same time. It was really interesting to watch how different drivers had completely and totally different driving techniques. They've also done suspension and brake cams there as well.