Sebring 12 hours

[SHOCH]

Who's gonna be going?
The plan now is I'm flying down Friday night with Andy Angermier (It's an adventure, on here), and getting picked up by my Dad at the airport.
Dad is coming down Wed. and golfing with a buddy that week.
We're staying at his friends house about 60 miles from the airport.
That makes us 120 miles from the track to drive Sat. morning. We'll watch the race all day and most likely leave before it ends due to the drive home and Dad is 72 and not much for the nightlife.
Andy and I on the other hand are interested in what else is happening, hooking up with other SHO fools, and looking for the inside track to getting in and out without hours stuck in traffic.
ANY advice would be appreciated, never been to this one.
Thanks, Tom

 

[K-Dawg]

Where are you guys flying into and staying?

I've never been to that race, but I was really hoping to finally check it out.

 

[K-Dawg]

We already had a thread on this, but as usual it got way off track.

http://www.shoforum.com/showthread.php?t=101653

 

[38SHO]

SEBRING IS BADASS!

all I remeber was a **** of a long time of beers, partying, and race cars.... if you like that, you are all good and this might be one of the best experiences of your life. This was better then ANYTHING automotive/race related I've done


I'm going, it'll probably be the last thing I do before the baby is born, and I'll probably take the SHO unless I hitch a ride with someone else...........


the coolest thing is, if you wanna take a break from the sun, catch a little nap, go back and fog out the car... hey its ok..... cause they are still racing later lol....... you would think 12 hours of racing would be too long for any one person to watch, but I was dissapointed it ended so early... I was just getting going.... If I ever get the chance, I'm defintely going to Le Mans... I've seen stories and pictures from that place and its just as crazy! Daytona does a 24 hour race, but the track is boring as ****, the cars are damn near all the same.... it is nowhere near the excitement of ALMS

the top tier Audi's and Peugoet(SP?) cars ran on the same lap right on each other's ass for 12 hours....... thats some ******** racing there..... one slip up anytime during the day and your done......

another cool thing about Sebring is the people, going around and witnessing some of the shit going on is crazy. especially at night, you can just walk around and chill with people in the campers and stuff, people had big screens setup showing the race footage from the Speed channel(that was pretty cool at night time when u can't see as good-cause its VERY dark there, the only lights are at the corner entry anywhere at the whole facility) There were 160,000 people there last year, to give you an idea of the madness there. They had multiple garbage trucks running around the track and they couldn't empty the garbage cans fast enough from all the beer bottles/cans in them. People would have all kinds of decorations, pictures, shit that resembles a trailor park living room setup outside... I even seen one person's camp ground that looked like an Antique store... must have took them days to set it up..... couldn't figure out why they did it....

its like halloween, spring break, july 4th, and the greatest race you'll ever get to watch in America all at the same time!


if you go and drink, make sure you buy beers WAY FAR AWAY from sebring, the amount of alcohol consumed there is ridiculous, I'd bet most places that sell beer where sold out within 50 miles of the track


x2 on where you flying into and staying at?

and kelvin..... u picked up a gen1? pics?

 

[SHOCH]

Cool, should have told me to use the search button. lol

 

[SHOCH]

Ok, back from dinner now and talked to Pops for more details.
Flying into Tampa is the plan, gotta book tickets soon I'll asume. Dads friend lives in Brooksville, North, so he says we'll pass Kelvin/ St. Lucie on the way there.
I gotta say right now I'd LOVE to party all day and night, check out the freak shows etc., I crack a beer when I pull into Road America every time I go and it's never later than 8 am., seriously, Neno, Mikey Kopstain, and I killed like 53 one day at the vintage races, epic day.
With that said...
Dad will have a beer or three all day but I can't drag him into the Snake Pit, his buddy is even older.
Maybe we'll figure something out as it gets closer, say farwell to Dad at 9 pm when he leaves and Andy and I latch on to SHO people that can get us back to the Airport Sunday, we'll play them as they fall.
I'll be talkin to Andy soon and we'll get these tickets sorted first.
I'm stoked just for a racing day with Pops at a different track, yea and a little FL. sun won't hurt my frozen Chicago a$$ by March too!

 

[K-Dawg]

I'm on the east coast. Brooksville is on the west coast with Tampa. The closest you're going to come to me is Sebring.

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to be able to go, but my grandparents have a place on the river about a half-hour from the track with plenty of beds.

 

[SHOCH]

Ok well now Pops is now NOT in charge of directions.
You guys want I'll dump this and keep yammering in the other post.

 

[K-Dawg]

This one's cool. The other one got onto Todd knockin up his future ex-wife.

 

[SuperchargedSHOguy]

You guys better call dibs!!! I was talking to shadetree chris and called dibs on his future ex wife this evening so I am out of this race.

 

[38SHO]

kelvin your grandparents got a place around there we can stay?


don't worry, we won't need many beds ;-)

on second thought, the race ended last year at 10:30pm....... and u can stay the night there, they don't kick you out until like 12pm the next day... I might just pass out in my car or bring a tent, because even a short drive to another place after the race, doesn't sound very promising at this time LOL.....

if I feel good, I'm gonna get lit, I probably wouldn't even be able to drive out of the place none the less make it on public roads

If you want to stay around longer SHOCH, I can get you back to Tampa sunday for the right price(its out of my way completely) I'm all for helping other SHoforum people out, but moneys tight and I would need to be recompensated for gas. I don't work on weekends so sunday is open for me. Tampa is about 200 miles from my house, but sebring is closer to tampa then where I live

 

[SHOCH]

I'll start with a huge THANKS for the offer.
I'll see my Dad Thanksgiving and talk with him then, I don't want him to feel like I'm ditching him and I don't know when he's planning on flying back here.
My Dad invited me to go with him, I got the OK to bring Andy cuz we were all sitting together at the SCCA National Runoffs and Andy mentioned he was interested.
When I told him I posted here the other night, he freaked a little and thought I was inviting a bunch of people to stay at his buddys house. lol 120 miles away.

My main reasons to post up was for easy access for the old timers and good viewing areas. It's not like they havn't seen it all before but they want to see the cars from good spots without walking 20 miles. The other reason was to hook up with you guys that go to this, I don't think I've met anyone at conventions and I apologize if I have, I think you know there's alot of empty bottles in the parking lot.

The other thing I have to do is talk with Andy (If you're wondering who he is he's the guy almost touching tongues with Ian in that picture of Bab Gervis at Tonys wedding)
Andys wife Kris goes by kickinSHO on here and they have a wht 91 plus that they track.

I also talked with Greg Ingram a SHO guy from here that has relatives/a condo near Daytona, he goes down there for the 500, and camps with me and the kids at Road America, he might be in on this too.
I've got an old friend in St. Pete I might hassle about this too, if I can get him to go he'd be a free ride back to the airport.
I'll get some more worked out and keep my fingers crossed I'm still working come March.

 

[green95]

I live about 7 miles from the track. I can probably help out.

 

[SHOCH]

Cool Thanks.
It looks like Andy has some work training that weekend and Greg is bringing the whole family down to Daytona a week before. At this point I'll most likely stick with Pops for the rides and stuff but still trying to get a hold of an buddy in St. Pete.
I def. want to hook up for some mid day beers though.

 

[K-Dawg]

Looks like I'll be going with a group and an RV. The plan is to go Friday afternoon and watch the vintage race, and stay overnight.

 

[SHOCH]

After seeing the word "Vintage" ya got me all excited, and my Pop too. We're talking about flying down Thursday to see some of that on Friday. I went to the Sebring site looking for a race schedule and can't find one, can you hook me up with a link or something? We're buying the plane tix tomorrow night. I can't wait to take a break from this snow and shit.

 

[K-Dawg]

I can't find anything about it right now, but I'd swear I did the other day. I'm not the one setting this up, so I don't really know.

 

[SHOCH]

I havn't searched around for race times, but we're coming down early anyway.
Found some cheap airfare for Wed. night out of Rockford, Il instead of O'Hare.
Me and Pops will land Wed night and get picked up by his buddy and head back to his place. Play golf Thursday, use his van and drive to Sebring Friday morning.
I can't believe how easy it was to talk my 71 yr old father into sleeping in the van at the track friday night, better be warmer than it was for the Rolex 24!!!
This is working out pretty good, we'll have our own coolers too.
I'll pm my cell to those going as it gets closer so we can empty a few bottles together.

 

[K-Dawg]

Ok, just got the schedule:

Friday:
8-8:30am - Qualifying #2 BFG/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda
8:45-9:45 - SVRA Vintage Races
10-11 - Combined Practice American Le Mans Series
11:15-11:45 - Prototype Lites Race Round 2
12-12:30 - BFG/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda Race #2
1:45-2:30 - Patron GT3 Challenge by Yokohama Race Round 2
2:45-3:10 - Qualifying - American Le Mans Series (GT and GTC)
3:20-3:45 - Qualifying - American Le Mans Series (LMP and LMC)
4-4:45 - Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear Race
5:10-6 - Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda Race

Saturday
8-8:25 - Combined Warm Up - American Le Mans Series
8:35-8:50 - SVRA Parade Laps
10:30-10:30 - 58th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring

 

[K-Dawg]

Get your ticket by Feb 15th to save $10 per ticket.

So the Vintage race is early in the morning. The group I'm going with are friends of a guy I work with. We have to work night shift that week, and would get off early Friday morning, so we are talking about taking that night off. We might stay at my grandparent's place Thursday night, and stay at the track Friday and Saturday night. But we're still working out the details.