Well here it is, finally, the last part of my series on my recent vacation to Long Beach for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.  There will be some photos posted in the coming months (I have a slow dial-up connection so not all of them will be uploaded right away and I'm not sure exactly where I'll put them on here (on my profile or in a blogpost, but either way I'll mention where I put them up-it probably will be in a blogpost or series of blogposts).

Well, anyway, I woke up in the morning and did the same routine as I had done the past 2 mornings, showered, ate, and finally went to the track.  I can't remember exactly what time I got to the track, but it was at about the time that the Atlantic Series (a "feeder" series to the Champ Car series) race was starting.  It was a pretty good race.  The polesitter (the #26 car-I forget his name) dominated the field until he had car trouble going into turn 1 about half way through the 50 minute race.  It was then that Simona DiSilvestro, a young Swedish girl (yes, I said GIRL) took the lead for good and eventually won the race, just about 12 hours or so after Danica Patrick won the IndyCar race in Japan. 

After the Atlantic race, there was an awesome display of robot cars.  These unmanned, highly sophisticated cars drove the Long Beach street course with the help of GPS and various sensors.  There were people that drove separate cars behind each of the robot cars, but all they had was a kill switch for the robot cars (the switch was only used if the robot cars were to have a problem of some sort).

I was walking around while the robot cars were driving around the track, but I did see them and got some pictures of them.  I continued walking around and eventually wound up at the Boston's Pizza that I wanted to eat at on Saturday.  This time, I was on my own for lunch, so I ate at Boston's.  I got in there about an hour before the Grand Prizx of Long Beach started and ordered an individual pizza and tea to drink.  It was very good and the service was so fast and friendly I got out about 15 minutes before start time.  While at Boston's, I was a little woried that I wouldn't get out in time for the race to start.  So I asked another patron and his family at the table next to me and I was told I would get out in time for the race. 

After paying, I left the restaurant and started slowly walking back to my seat in the grandstands.  But, I did manage to stop at the Tapout stand and get my picture taken with two cute girls who were working there for a $5 tip.  Don't worry, nothing happened, all I did was have a picture taken on my camera (they actually did two pictures).  I could have bought a t-shirt with the picture on it for $20, but I decided just to do the pictures. 

After the picture session, it was time for the race to start!  I got to near where my seat was at the time of the start.  I stopped near the start/finish line to get a picture and a video on my camera of the start of the race (which was a standing start that Champ Car and Formula 1 do and not the traditional IndyCar or NASCAR start).  This was the moment I had been waiting for!  After the start, I went back to my seat and watched the race.

Polesitter Justin Wilson, who is from England, led a good chunk of the race until he had a mechanical going into turn 1 that ended his day.  Australian Will Power took over the lead and held on for the win (that I didn't find out until after I got home because we started to leave just before the end of the race.

On our way out, I stopped to get some last minute suveniors.  Then it was time to head out.  As we drove on the 405 freeway, my mom called my sister and they made arrangements for us to stop at the appartment she lives in (my apology if I mentioned "house" in the prior 2 parts) in Thousand Oaks to eat pizza and visit with her, her roommate, and her roommate's 2-year old son.  It seemed like it took forever for us to find the Lamppost Pizza in Thousand Oaks (we had to pick up the pizza after my sister called it in).  We finally found it and after picking up our pizza, we went to her appartment.  We ate and visited for at least an hour.  Then it was time to go home.  We finally got home around 8:30 pm Sunday.

Well, that's it.  Like I said earlier, photos coming soon!

Saturday morning I woke up fairly early (can't remember exactly what time).  It was April 19, my 25th birthday.  After taking a shower, it was time to eat breakfast in the hotel lobby.  Having learned how expensive food was at the track, I ate literally until I was totally stuffed.  While eating, I talked to a fellow race fan and his family (whom I'd also talked to on Friday morning during breakfast in the lobby).  My mom and dad didn't eat at the same time I did.  Once we had finished eating, it was time to head down to the track.  But this time, only my dad and I went to the track.  This time we just drove all the way down there.  My mom and my sister, who stayed the prior night with us, went to do some shopping and see a movie.  I stayed at the track almost all day, whereas my dad only stayed for a couple of hours.

Saturday was a little more important than Friday.  There were actual races on this day to go along with warm-up sessions and qualifying.  I arrived a little after 11 am I think it was.  The Toyota Pro-Celebrity Race was just getting ready to start when I got to the grandstand.  This 10-lap race featured numerous celebrities and a few "pro" drivers (drag racers and a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver).  The pros started 30 seconds behind the celebrities.  Mike Skinner, the Truck Series driver, won the overall race, while ESPN pit reporter Jaime Little won the celebrity division.

After the celebrity race, I started walking around.  I walked all the way down to Turn 1, where the cars exit Shoreline Drive.  I found a restaurant called Boston's Gourmet Pizza (I think) and decided it was time to eat!  So I called my dad and tried to get him to meet me down there, but the Atlantic Series was doing a qualifying session.  Because of that, it was so loud that I had to go into Boston's to talk to him.  After several minutes of misunderstandings on both my part and his, we decided to meet at Famous Dave's (which is just a few hundred feet down Shoreline Drive from Boston's.  After a about 45 minute wait (not too bad considering the size of the crowd), we got a table.  I enjoyed the brisket I ordered.  My dad enjoyed his dish too.  I can't remember what he had.

After eating, I went back out to watch the action on the track.  The Champ Cars had started their qualifying.  I walked over to an area about maybe 100 feet away from Famous Dave's (near a harbor) where you can literally get within 15 feet of those cars, which were going probably at least 150, but probably even faster than that.  I took some pictures of the cars going through this stretch. 

At 4 pm, the American Le Mans Series race started.  I would have to say that these cars were the loudest of all the cars I heard throughout the weekend.  The race lasted 100 minutes and featured only 3 full-course cautions (and I think 2 of those were for debris and 1 for an accident/wreck).  I forget who won the races (there's like 4 races in one in the ALMS, overall and each of the different classes).  It was a good, clean race.

After the ALMS race, it was time for me to leave.  After what seemed like an hour (probably well less than that, though), my mom arrived to pick me up near the main entrance.  I had to walk east along Ocean Blvd (the main road in and out of the race course area) for a couple of blocks because there were no parking signs and many Long Beach PD officers nearby.  My mom barely got through coming west on Ocean Blvd before the LBPD shut the road down and detoured motorists onto side streets. 

I was running out of money, so we stopped by Ralphs (a grocery store that is prominent down south.  Many of you might remember that Bakersfield used to have them, too) so I could get cash.  After that, we went to the hotel and picked up my dad, who was about to go to the Subway across the parking lot from the hotel.  My sister had already left because she had to go to work.  We then went to Claim Jumper and ate after a more than 30 minute wait.  The Claim Jumper was pretty good, but I'd prefer going to The Cheesecake Factory next time (we'd ate there the previous 2 nights, so it was time for a change).  After eating, we just went back to the room.  My dad fell asleep first, my mom second, and me third.  I tried to watch the IndyCar race from Motegi, Japan on TV, but my mom turned it on too late and caught only the post-race show.  And what I saw was both shocking and exciting.  Right when my mom turned it on to the race, they were showing Danica Patrick's car with many people surrounding it.  I thought, "Did she win!?!"  Turns out, she did!!!  I was very happy.

After playing cards against myself (which I tend to do a lot), I finally fell asleep after a very long day, knowing that Sunday would be even longer.

That's all for now, folks.  The final part, Part 3-Sunday, coming soon, so stay tuned!

A couple of weeks ago (April 18-20), I went to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.  Back in December, my mom got us (herself, my dad, and myself) 3-day passes for the event for my birthday, which was April 19.  It was both a Christmas present and a birthday present for me.  At the last minute, we decided to go on Thursday, April 17 in the afternoon after my dad and I got off work (my mom was off work that day).  Our original plan was to leave Friday (April 18) morning and come home on Monday (April 21).  Going by the original plan, I took vacation days from work that Friday and Monday.  My mom used www.hotels.com to book a reservation at a small hotel called the Guesthouse Inn on the Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy 1/PCH).  Here's a list of all the different racing series' that were in Long Beach for the weekend:  Champ Car World Series/IRL (the final split race in the newly-merged series which is now the IRL/IndyCar Series), the American Le Mans Series, the Atlantic Series (the feeder series for the Champ Cars), Formula Drift (drifting cars, which have only rear-wheel drive-like what you see in the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift-a movie I haven't seen.  I saw just a little bit of the drifting at Long Beach), and the Speed GT World Challenge (I didn't see any action from this series).

We got to the Guesthouse Inn at around 5 pm after over 3 hours of driving (traffic on I-405 was only moving about 30 mph from the southern base of Beverly Hills all the way to the Carson area.  We checked in and looked at the room.  The room was clean, but smelled funny, so we decided not to stay there.  We got in the car and looked for a place to eat.

After what seemed like at least an hour, we found a nice shopping center in Hunington Beach called the Bella Terra.  In there was a The Cheesecake Factory restaurant.  We ate there (the food and dessert were great) and then hopped back in the car to find another hotel to stay at.  We soon found the Hampton Inn on Seal Beach Blvd. between the PCH and I-405.  We got a room for three nights here.  It's a nicer hotel than the other one we went to when we arrived.  We unpacked and relaxed and finally went to sleep.

We woke up on Friday morning and got ready and ate breakfast at the hotel.  After that, we went down to Alimitos Bay to try to catch a boat called the Aqualink to get to the race course without messing with the traffic and dealing with parking fees (it was free to park in the marina's parking lot at Alimitos Bay).  But, it turns out the boat wasn't running, so we tried to wait for a bus (called the Passport) at a nearby bus stop.  We met a nice man who was also waiting (he had done so for almost an hour) to take the bus to the race course.  He told us about another bus (the Long Beach Transit).  We took his advice, went to another bus stop just up the road, parked, and boarded a Long Beach Transit bus.  The man gave us earplugs (unused, thankfully) because we didn't have any.

After paying the 90 cent/person bus fare ($2.70 for the three of us), we had to wait on the bus for approximately 10 minutes.  The bus driver was very nice to us.  I was a bit anxious because I hadn't ridden a bus of any kind in over 7 years and had never ridden a transit bus.  It took about a half an hour to get down to the main entrance of the race course at Long Beach Blvd and Ocean Blvd. 

As soon as I stepped off the bus, I could hear the Champ Cars as they zoomed down the backstretch, which is right below Ocean Blvd between the street and the Long Beach Arena.  Friday was all about practice and qualifying; no actual races were held until Saturday.  It was a pretty long walk from the entrance to our seat in Granstand 27 along Shoreline Dr between the hairpin turn and the start/finish line.  Along the way, I picked up a media guide/suvenir program for $10 (the proceeds went to a youth ministry in Long Beach).  After sitting down for a while, I walked around to check out the festivities.

At 4:00 pm Friday, it was time to for me to go to the Champ Car garage area.  Earlier in the day, I bought a 1-day garage pass for $20.  From 4-5pm they had an autograph/photo session in which all the Champ Car drivers signed autographs and took photos with the fans.  I didn't get all the drivers' autographs because some of the lines were so long (like the ones for legendary driver Jimmy Vasser and rookie driver Graham Rahal) and the session was only an hour long.  I stayed at the track all day and ended up with a nasty sunburn on my face and arms because I forgot the sunblock.  And I learned how expensive it was for food and suvenirs at the track.  On Friday alone, I spent over $80 just on food, a program, and the garage pass.

After the autograph session, I called my mom and she came and picked me up.  We went to The Cheesecake Factory (the same one we went to the night before, only this time my sister joined us after arriving from Thousand Oaks, where she lives).  This time I tried the Chicken Teriyaki, which was pretty good.  After dinner, we went back to the hotel (my sister spent the night with us).  As everyone else was falling asleep and my sister was down in the hotel lobby writing work schedules (she manages a Jamba Juice store in the Simi Valley area), I turned the TV to ESPN2 to watch the IndyCar race, which was in Motegi, Japan, only to find that that race was (eventually) postponed until the next day because of rain.  So, I just played cards against myself and eventually went to sleep on the fold-out bed on the couch in the room.

Well that's about it for part 1.  Part 2 (Saturday) coming soon this week!