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Rowadds77@aol.com
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Birthday
1988-10-07
Gender
Male
Location
Near Los Angeles
Member Since
2006-03-25
Occupation
Production Assistant @ Mandaly Productions
Real Name
Jared Head
Personal
Achievements
Received my certification to be a cameraman at age 13; Ran a 5:23 mile; Written several "books" but haven't had them published yet; I'll find more
Anime Fan Since
1999
Favorite Anime
What else? Digimon. That's it.
Goals
Find the true adrenaline rush; Climb Mt. Everest; Do the Tour de France and finish it; Drive a car over 200mph (came close, but not yet); Get that segment idea for CNN approved by them and begin to host it; Win an Oscar
Hobbies
Filmmaking (as I want to be a filmmaker), Writing, Road Cycling, Acting, Cars, Ballistics
Talents
Writing well. Acting well. Directing well. Being a fast road cyclist. I'm a master at driving a car. I can make fart noises with my hands!
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Long Beach Grand Prix - Practice
I was at it on Sunday. Watched just about every race there was. I'm a fanatic of racing. Any kind, but I don't like racing animals. I could care less which dachsund is fastest, but the weiner races are cool too.
But I digress and move right back onto topic.
Sunday was the day of the race. If any of you know it, they dub it "The 200mph Beach Party".
It is literally right along the beach. Well, about 400 feet away from it at it's closest point, but hell, that's close to the ocean none the less.
You couldn't have asked for better racing conditions that day. Literally perfect.
Me and my family arrived at a little after 9 a.m. My uncle Steve came along, as he is a veteran spectator of the Long Beach Grand Prix, dating all the way back to watching the race when it was Formula 5000.
Well, me and Uncle Steve both bolted away from my parents as we went through the ticket stalls. 9 a.m. was the start of Champ Car practice, and we both wanted to catch a glimpse. Where we entered, we went over a bridge which walked us directly over the back end straight-away in between turn 9 and turn 10.
This was now my first taste of Champ Car. The sound. The sound is what sticks with me the most. The roar of the engine is actually diluted out by the whinning of the tires. That signature whin of a F1, IRL or Champ Car is not the engine, but it is actually the tires.
I heard the cars coming from my right side and then heard them moving away on my left side in a matter of seconds. So i finally made my way with Steve over to the edge of the bridge and heard a car coming. I saw the blur of a car zip by and continue down the straight away. I learned that watching this kind of a car race on TV is a disservice. The cars may look fast on TV, but actually ebing there and watching them, the cars look to be in hyperspeed.
We looked down to the side of the course and saw that you could stand at the bottom of the bridge, so me and Steve took off. I was wondring who was moving faster, the Champ Cars or Steve?
At the bottom of the bridge, we got the full experiance. We could walk up to a chain link fence. Climbing the fence would get you right in front of a race official, so that was out of the question, plus I wouldn't do that anyway. But if you could hop the fence, you could walk about 10 feet, and you'd be right next to the barriers that mark the course.
The Long Beach Grand Prix is a Street Road Course, meaning that it is a Road Course (road courses are not ovals, ovals are superspeedways). But not just any road course,. it is one that is layed down on city streets. So for a week each year, all these streets in Long Beach are closed down, and the kings of speed are free to floor throttles.
So at the bottom of the bridge, the sound of the cars is amplified many times. So I'm standing there, and you can see all the way down to turn 9 and then all the way down to turn 10.
A Champ Car emerges from turn 9, and the driver slams the throttle. The car must have gone from 0mph to 60mph in less than two seconds. The turn was about 900 feet away, but within three to four seconds, the Champ Car was zipping past us. When he passed, it was a sound to hear and feel. You could feel the sound of the cars. It would travel through your body, tingling everything. Then the rush of air as it was pushed out of the way by the car zooming past. I continued to watch the car.
On the back straightaway the cars top out at 170mph, the second fastest portion of the course. The Champ Car went from 170mph to 35mph to enter turn 10 in less than 5 seconds, and was gone out of sight.
At that point, I wanted to be a race car driver very badly.
I have to say, this one experiance has left quite an impression on me to say the least.
More later.
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