These Are Your Best Memories At The Race Track

I don’t know if this is my best memory, but it is my most memorable.

2000 Rolex 24. Went with a high school friend who was in a wheelchair from a car crash a couple weeks after we graduated. We had GA tickets, and after wandering around the grandstand on the outside of the track we decided to go and check out infield, but we didn’t want to lose the good parking spot for his van. What to do? The Turn 4 tunnel.

If you’ve never been, the tunnels are shaped like a shallow V, you go down one side and up the other. My buddy, who’s 6'4" and his wheelchair were never going to fit through the pedestrian paths on the outside, so we went to the guard house, waited our turn to merge into the car traffic, waited for the preceding car to clear the exit in the infield, then ran.

Knowing I had about 270 lbs. of dead weight and wheelchair to push up the other side, I tried to built up as much momentum as possible without wobbling before hitting the transition, and then shoved as hard as I could to get us out the other side. So focused was I on the task that I didn’t notice the tunnel full of pedestrians (and people gathered at the exit) watching these two idiots attempt this. When we emerged on the other side, we were greeted with a cheer from the tunnel that we could hear over the noise of the cars on the banking, and high fives from those who were waiting for us.

We had a similar response when we went to leave a few hours later, but at that point after being out in the sun most of the day it was a bit more subdued.

Suggested by: Along with Martin, Dutch Gunderson, Lana and Sally Decke

I was probably around seven years old and my dad took me to a now long-defunct stock car track called Pinecrest Speedway. We’d been a number of times before so I knew the more competitive cars from memory already. Long story short, the feature race on this one occasion ended with a crash at the finish line. There was a lot of confusion about who won which eventually boiled over into a significant fight between the involved drivers and track officials. Oddly as a Canadian, that was my first experience with a “bench clearing” brawl and it wasn’t even in a hockey game. I have no clue who was ultimately awarded the win for the race, but my favourite driver (car) ended up getting a suspension. I also remember my mother giving me her disappointed look when we got home that the brawl was my highlight event of the race.

Suggested by: elgordo47

One of my favorite memories at the track, which didn’t involve anything track-related, was when a buddy of mine proposed to his high school girlfriend (they’d been together for 6 years then). This happened at Cayuga Motorsport Park in Ontario, a track him and I used to frequent and had many great memories at. For privacy purposes, I cannot share the photos, but his girlfriend (now wife) was our personal, professional photographer at almost every track day. I didn’t even know that he would propose to her there and then, so It was a big surprised for me as well. Right there in front of the gathered crowd, standing next to his ~700 whp TT Supra, she said yes to him. Cayuga Motorsport was kind enough to actually give us a celebration (food, music and drinks), or maybe they were in on it the whole time :)

Suggested by: Da Car Guru - 15,000 RPM daily driver

My high school buddies and I snuck into the 1992 Hungarian Moto GP race at the Hungaroring. The outer fence were about a km away from the the actual race grounds, nobody were watching, so we hopped the fence (more like squeezed by the concrete wall and the barbed wire top), then casually walked onto the grounds and acted like we belong.

We found some great spots to watch the race (even got into the gran stand viewing area at the finish line for a bit). Nothing like hearing (and being deafened by) 25+ 500cc bikes launch at the start. At the time watching bike races on TV did not convey the absolute edge these riders are racing at (no HD, crappy slow-mo, etc.). Seeing it on live, was an eye opener. Eddie Lawson won on the 500cc on the Cagiva, great memories.

Suggested by: towman

Has to be at Lemons, but picking a single one is too hard.

1. Changing the transmission on the Homer in Buttonwillow in 100+ degree heat, so hot our jackstands sunk into the asphalt.

2. Drunk karaoke in the pits at Sears Point, along with the guys running electric wheelchairs on a scaled down version of the Top Gear test track.

3. Taking the completely worn out brake pads to Autozone after the first day of racing: “When did you buy these?” “YESTERDAY.”

Suggested by: dustynnguyendood

Oh that’s easy. Went to a vintage cars day at Watkins about 10 years ago and saw a bunch of Aurora Indy cars chasing after a Ferrari Indy car. It was Ferrari, Aurora, Aurora, Aurora, then a bunch of brands, and in the very back was a really cool vintage 70s Ford. Afterwards there was a drive what you had event and of course I had to enter my Aurora. The tech guy was laughing his ass off once he saw the badge. We were speed limited to I think 65 but I didn’t care. It was a good day.

Suggested by: Drg84

1995 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Paul Newman just won the GTS category in a Mustang (tube frame) sponsored by his latest movie, “Nobody’s Fool,” on his 70th birthday (car was #70 in tribute). All the crew sung, “Happy Birthday to You” on the podium.

Suggested by: AuntSlappy

As a poor, that did not have parents into cars and track days, I have just a few.

My sister and her boyfriend taking me to the dirt track. https://www.williamsgrove.com/ and having fun being sprayed with dirt and gravel.

In the 1980s watching the SCCA time trials at the PA farm show parking lot.

Suggested by: 4jim

Road Atlanta. Spent a bunch of time driving up the relatively steep red clay access road in Turn 1 at Road Atlanta in the heavy rain in my Samurai. Getting cheered on by the corner workers

Suggested by: Bob

My best racetrack memory? The infield at the 1977 Preakness. Thousands of us derelicts brought in kegs of beer, sofas, and other party essentials. Most of us didn’t have the capacity to watch Seatle Slew make history.

Suggested by: Hugh Jass

Any of them (all of them being both NASCAR Cup races each year at MIS, aside from one event at Milan Dragway), because they were with my dad.

Suggested by: MP81

A buddy and I bought a 1986 Prelude for 24 Hours of Lemons racing. We spent June, July and part of August in New Orleans (look for it on a map right next to the sun) fixing it up. We bought it from a guy who had dreams of Lemons racing himself, so we didn’t have as far to go as we might. To this day, I’ll never understand how a Japanese engineer looked at that nightmare vacuum system and thought, “nailed it.”

This was late aughts and we proudly trailered our baby to the closest Lemons Race- Can’t Get Bayou at the Circuit Grand Bayou in Belle Rose, La. It was 4 billion degrees. We took the Prelude out on the track for some practice laps...

And the fact that we never dropped the oil pan fucked us. Someone in the chain of ownership had RTV’d the pan and while under racing conditions, it melted and clogged the intake, drying the oil up and destroying the engine.

We call off the two others who were coming from Texas to race with us (one was the original owner). Instead of turning around, they start craigslisting for suitable donor cars. We find one we’re certain will work, they buy it EN ROUTE for 500 bucks and we prepare our car to receive its new engine. The whole time we’re getting support from every team in the paddock and the race organizers. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing most of the time and people came out of the woodwork with tools and advice. Lemons racers are some of the best people.

Car gets there in the evening of the first day of racing. We go at it, tearing the new engine away from its auto transmission (and original car) to get it ready to mate to our manual. About 2am or so that night we discover that engine and transmission are, in fact, NOT compatible. We pack it in and have some beers.

After the race ends the following day, we stay to celebrate the victors only to find that we’d been awarded the You Got Screwed award, lots of cheers from our fellows, and a $500 purse- which we immediately signed over to those who bought our doomed donor car.

We would go on to put many laps on our shitty but beloved carbureted Prelude at some wonderful southern racetracks (Barber absolutely rules). But that first race, where we never actually raced, was my fondest memory of the sport.

Suggested by: ueberbill

I have two:

1. After discovering the American Le Mans Series on Speedvision in 2000, my dad and I finally made the trek out to Road America in Wisconsin from Detroit to take in a race in person in 2002. It absolutely blew my mind experiencing the speed and sound of the cars in person that you just don’t get a true sense of on TV. And it was the Panoz LMP-1 that really grabbed my attention on that Speedvision broadcast - being so vastly different (and American) from everything else on the grid. To this day, it’s still my favorite car of all time.

2. After attending Road America in 2002, and ALMS and Grand-Am races at nearly every significant race track in the US, I finally reached the holy grail - the 24 Hours of Le Mans - in 2014. It was an incredible, almost biblical experience that I’ll never forget. My friends bailed after 6 hours, but I stayed the full 24 Hours. And if I never went again, I’d have been content, but I was lucky enough to go again in 2016, 17 and 18!

Honorable Mention: While I’m not a big drag racing fan, everyone should attend an NHRA Drag Racing event sometime in their life. There is absolutely NOTHING that compares to the experience of watching two (or four) 12,000 HP Nitro Funny Cars or Dragsters tearing past you. I’m convinced they are the loudest man-made things in the entire world, this side of an atomic bomb and the feeling you get through your entire body isn’t something I’ve been able to figure out how describe. It was absolutely insane and everyone should see it once.

Suggested by: MJL

Cant pick a fav but being certainly one of my most memorable was being there when this happened

Reasons that make this so good:

• This was early 2008, the first R8s had just started to be delivered
• The in car commentary
• That is not the owner driving... it’s his friend, the owner is the passenger

Suggested by: CrashedLambo

The first professional race I ever attended was the IndyCar race the 2007 Detroit Indy Grand Prix. My favorite IndyCar driver, Tony Kanaan, won. It was the 2nd of only 2 wins on road/street circuits he would get in his IndyCar career, with all the rest of his wins being on ovals. Couldn’t have asked for a better outcome at my first ever race.

Suggested by: AutoBox, Roll Out!

1991 GP Brasil Interlagos with my dad. Senna’s first win at home. Senna’s McLaren gears failing until he only had the 6th gear on his last lap. We were on the opposite straightway and we could hear that he was not changing gears , up or down. He had neck spasms from the exhaustion and strain. Pain so bad he could barely lift the trophy at the podium. Connection with his country. Connection with my dad. It’s been a while and I still get teared up thinking about it.

Suggested by: Gootz