Champ Car Practice

The Champ cars came to Laguna Seca for driver qualification and time trials on March 11, and we were invited. The Champ World Racing League is starting its season that will include the San Jose Grand Prix as well as other venues around the country.

This year they came to Laguna Seca to give their racing teams an opportunity to qualify their rookies and to get in some practice time on the track, so Laguna Seca decided to make a day of it and invite a lot of people to participate. Various tents were set up in the infield, one for restaurants and wineries where you could get some delicacies and do a wine tasting, one with representatives from various civic groups in Monterey County where you could get all the info you wanted on, say, the next rodeo coming to town. Champ had their own trailer set up for recruiting members of their fan club, and, of course, there was the largest tent where you could buy a T-Shirt or a hat.

People arriving with interesting cars were invited to park in the infield and show off their vehicles. Some car clubs came down in force so there were a lot of neat hot rods, some British cars, and a few early Porches. John Sisler and Roger Evans drove down their Triumphs and participated in the car show. I rode down with Fred Strong in his PT Cruiser, which, apparently, wasn’t interesting enough to garner us a parking spot in the middle of the action. Ed and Diane Lancia were also there in a non-Triumph.

There was plenty of action on the track during two 4 hour sessions as the cars and drivers tested themselves against the clock. A bounty was being offered to the first driver of the day to beat the track record. Towards the end of the day, Sebastien Bourdais did just that by mere fractions of a second, collecting $5,000 and proving that the Champ cars are every bit as fast as the Formula 1 cars that captured the title last year.

In between the practice sessions, the drivers were available for autographs. When they were done with their straight out runs, they had 2 hours to practice their standing starts.

For a video, click here and turn up the volume!