Bob B

Tuesday 8/24/99
Ah, yes, it was a beautiful past few days on Monterey Peninsula, enjoying the "typical" Monterey Pacific Coast sights and activities, biking, time on the beaches, sightseeing and shopping....with my wonderful wife and kids,........but it all "ended" with bigger and better things to come [my wife just hit me, kiddingly ], for this afternoon on the return drive back to the S.F. Bay Area we stopped off at the Laguna Seca Racecourse to check out the preparations for this BIG weekend's Monterey Historics.

Now, before I get to describing the Laguna Seca track scene, let me say that there are already more Audi's, of many different vintages, driving around Monterey Peninsula than I've ever seen before. It's only Tuesday!, can't wait for the weekend! There are even 18 wheelers off loading Audi steet cars (new and old) for owners or "big wigs" to drive around the area. Must be nice to transport your Audi cross country to then drive it around Monterey & the Pacific Coast, so you don't put 1000's of miles on it. But then again, it would be nice to drive it long distance too. There are chaffeur driven A8s tooling around the area in sightseeing jaunts for many of the visiting Audi executives. Pretty cool, the chaffeurs are even dressed in black sports coats with the Audi rings and Audi name on the left breast pocket.

At the track:
All the hospitality, vendor and display tents are all up. New and appropriate signs are up all around the place and the course seems ready. There are probably over 100 vintage race cars already unloaded in the paddock with their full paddock setup already ready.

Audi is nearly completed in preparing it's display area and big tent. There's a huge AUDI "totem pole" like tower in front of the tent which proudly denotes each of the founding companies of Audi, with class. Inside the closed off main tent I could hear the soundtrack and music from an Audi video of company & company racing history, probably much like the one Porsche did last year. I liked Porsche's and will probably love Audi's. I didn't see any of the historic Audi race cars out in the open, but they're probably locked away in the many 18 wheeler trailers parked in the paddock.

In the Paddock, backing up to the Pits, for the full length of the Pits, is a huge solid gray wall, about 12-15 ft tall that's segmented into 25 different sections (Pit Stalls?), one for each year of the 25 year history of the Historics. Each section is labeled with the honored marque or person of that year. Nothing was on the ground in these sections today, but I imagine come Friday, there will be a display of the marque or person (Shelby & Fangio) in each. Should be really an awesome sight.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed the descriptions and my impressions, but, I hope that I didn't spoil your surprise of seeing the scene for the first time yourself. Check it out live on Speedvision this Saturday & Sunday.

More than a rumor, the Audi R8R (roadster) from LeMans will be putting on some demonstration runs on Saturday and Sunday. Hope it breaks the track class record and Audi then decides to run the remaining American LeMans Series!....wishful thinking.

I'll be returning on Thursday for a full four days at the Historics, including the official Audi Banquet Friday evening, the Quattro Club USA events throughout the weekend, including the Sunday Audi Cars Parade Lap around the course and the Saturday evening NorCal A4 Owners Club dinner, all with my 35mm and video cameras.

Hope to see many of you there!!!

Bob B
98.5 2.8 QTS