Returning to the Iowa Speedway

When I heard that the Daytona Prototypes of the Rolex racing series were coming to Iowa, I made a note that it could be a fun thing to see. Having seen the Rolex races at Le Mans and Daytona, it would be nice to see them first hand. I mentioned it to Bill and he was interested as well. "Get me two tickets when you get yours." were my instructions. If Bill was bringing his daughter, I figured Linda would likely enjoy seeing something new as well; I was right. After visiting the capitol, we set sail for the track and another new adventure.

When we arrived, there were motorcycles testing their equipment for their race on Saturday. It was fun to see them flopping from side to side as they sped through the chicane and sweeping curves of the road course. Next came the qualifying for the prototypes; they were louder, faster, and quite colorful. It was pretty interesting to see a dozen or more cars all go out on the track at the same time for qualifying. The drivers had fifteen minutes to post their times. When a car spun into the gravel pit in the twelfth minute, there was a scramble to get it back on track so cars could resume their run; fifteen minutes means fifteen minutes whether you're running or not.

As advertised, NASCAR driver Mark Martin dropped in after qualifying for the Chicago race. Winding down his NASCAR career, Mark is looking at other, less frequent racing series where he could still run but not year round. Before the race, he took a seat in the autograph area and was interviewed by a few individuals and photographed by many including yours truly.

During the autograph session, the Bob Pace Band featuring Steve George played an excellent hour plus set of blues and R & B for crowd. Bob plays guitar and Steve does vocals; each is excellent at their art. Linda and I had heard the name before and will now be watching for them to come to the area; they're worth a trip.

Another hour or so passed and they were racing. The race was to be 400 kilometers (just under 250 miles) or two and one-half hours, whichever came first. There were very few breaks in the action so they did go the scheduled distance. After the sun went down, it was pretty fun to see headlights and brake lights glittering as the cars wound around the 1.3 mile circuit. When it was done, another occasional NASCAR driver, Scott Pruett, was one of the winning pair of drivers.

Hmmm... two hundred fifty miles in two and one-half hours, that's averaging right around one hundred miles an hour... including pit stops, a mandatory driver change, a couple of yellow flags, and nine corners per lap. Pretty sporty! For comparison, I checked the NASCAR.com to see what the Cup cars had run a few weeks ago at the Infineon road course; they published an average speed of 74.547 mph. Curious, I checked the Formula 1 numbers... they just ran the British Grand Prix and their fastest lap averaged 222.629 kilometers per hour. That works out to about 138 miles per hour but doesn't consider any stoppages nor indicate a sustained running rate. Track configuration would also play a big part in those numbers but it's interesting as a very rough comparison.

While it's not our favorite form of racing to watch, it was fun to do once. I'd do it again ... maybe in a year or so...