After last year’s inagaural USGP at Laguna Seca, spectators and journalists alike slammed the track for being inadequately prepared to deal with the volume of traffic at the race – leading to horrific traffic jams that meant travel time to and from the track was measured in hours.
The organizers took the criticism to heart and developed a new traffic plan for the 2006 event. It seemed to work pretty well, at least for those spectators who came in on motorcycles – which included me, so I can’t speak for those who parked their cars off-site and were shuttled to the track in buses.
However, during this year’s race weekend, another problem cropped up – water. Temperatures at the track were in the 90s on both Saturday and Sunday, and smart spectators were drinking plenty of water to stay healthy and hydrated while watching the race. Or at least we were, until the concession stands ran out of water!
That’s right – not only were they charging the ridiculous sum of $4 for a bottle of water, but on Saturday afternoon when a friend and I tried to buy a bottle, every stand we reached (3 in total) was SOLD OUT.
Apparently, late in the day Saturday the track officials ordered vendors to reduce the price of water from $4 a bottle to $1, a price change which continued Sunday. However, the new, $1 bottles were half the size of the originals, so it wasn’t quite as sweet a deal as it seemed. Besides, this order reportedly came down only after a fair number of spectators collapsed due to a combination of heat and lack of water.
On a day when you’ll probably need to drink 10 bottles of water to stay hydrated, there’s no excuse for vendors at the event to run out of H2O, or even to be charging $4/bottle for it – particularly to spectators who’ve already paid between $80 and several hundred dollars just to enter the track. If it costs $40 to stay hydrated all day, fewer people will do it, and that means more sick spectators.
Hopefully, the management at Laguna Seca will once again favorably respond to customer and media criticism. At next year’s race, we expect to find an ample supply of water, being sold at a reasonable price!
