What's going on at NJMP?

Live timing and scoring shows 34 minutes of green flag in the Koni race and about 90 minutes of caution.

Wait, what? I thought that was going to be aired on Speed, live?

Koni Challenge races are always tape delayed a week or two. Rolex is live.

Bastages. Speed Berkeleying sucks the E36 M3-hole.

I also hate how they always seem to cover only the LMPx's on the American Le-Mans series. I want to see more on the 'street' cars. Those Ford GT's and Aston Martins look very interesting.

Tried to go to theRace today. They were so disorganized and obviously had little idea of how to deal with the crowd. We ended up demanding a refund and leaving after being stranded in a parking lot a mile or more from the track with a non-running a shuttle system as the race started.. I wish them luck after alienating hundreds of fans...

chknhwk wrote: Bastages. Speed Berkeleying sucks the E36 M3-hole. I also hate how they always seem to cover only the LMPx's on the American Le-Mans series. I want to see more on the 'street' cars. Those Ford GT's and Aston Martins look very interesting.

Yeah... I agree, I like the cars better, but even I admit to not being interested in the slower cars. It's like... how can they intensely cover a battle for the lead (although they do sometimes) when they're all getting passed! Imagine being one of the drivers. I would absolutely love to drive any of those cars... but still it would really suck. I mean, imagine how many times you would get passed in a race!

Tomo -- that really sucks! I didn't even know things like that happened!!

It was interesting. It seemed like NJMP has the makings of a great facility. However, the distinct lack of seating was aa real problem which can hopefully be addresed by the time the next Grand-am race happens, if not sooner.

Hey, look on the bright side!

GARRA has never had big crowds to begin with, so maybe this is the start of something good.

And on the ALMS-side, Speed cameras showed a lot more of the GT cars at Belle Isle than most any other broadcast. Heck, they even did a special segment on the Ford GT's and their constructor, Kevin Doran.

Maybe it was done in deference to the race being held in Detroit, but it was good to watch.

Guys:

If you're on the east coast, consider coming to the "Thunderbolt Historics" at NJMP on Sept 19-21 with Vintage Racer Group (VRG). I'll be there.

It's a spectator event and will have vintage races plus a vintage airshow. Tickets are pretty cheap (see the NJMP website).

Also, they could still use a few flaggers/workers (but they need to know soon...and for sure, not maybe). Volunteers get free entry, food and there'll be live music. Camping OK too.

~CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO~

jdw wrote: Live timing and scoring shows 34 minutes of green flag in the Koni race and about 90 minutes of caution.

The big messes happened back to back. They had a bunch of cars pile up over in the tight section, then after getting everything cleaned up someone took out some of the guardrail/armco on the restart.

Tomo wrote: Tried to go to theRace today. They were so disorganized and obviously had little idea of how to deal with the crowd. We ended up demanding a refund and leaving after being stranded in a parking lot a mile or more from the track with a non-running a shuttle system as the race started.. I wish them luck after alienating hundreds of fans...

The lot I parked in was easily walkable to the track. The shuttles were running well and there was enough room for everyone on the shuttle at each end.

Once at the track, everything is easily walkable. There was no problems getting a good spot to specteate from, except for the small amount of grandstand space. They could use a couple more sets of seats.

Apparently the Koni race on Saturday went yellow for nearly an hour to let the dust settle down. Reports from those there (as crew) indicate that the place is in no way ready for the big leagues. Yet. That should change.

I saw one of the partners of NJMP on Wind Tunnel last night. I did not know that he also did VIR and that if you join one club, you get access to the other one.

thanks for the info on the guardrail incident. Saw lots of dust during the Rolex race. Looking at the race notes from qualifying and practice the stewards intended to penalize drivers who went off course (and presumably kicked up a cloud of dust.)

It must have been a bummer to change drivers during the 3 or 4th yellow in the Koni race, cruise around for the next 35 laps under yellow, then with 5 minutes in the 2:30 hour race, go all out to the finish.

Did you see any of the Challenge racing??

I was there with my kids. My 7 year old had the camera when the crash happened. There were four cars involved and they seemed to get it cleaned up quickly considering what needed to be done. All four of the cars needed to be towed and the track needed fluids cleaned up. You can see in the first photo the incident and the corner workers responding. At one point they had two ambulances and two tow trucks along with one of the safety trucks there. The incident seemed to almost block the entire track.

Here is a good view back toward the parking area: You can see quite a bit of dust. That dust is not from the track, but the parking lots.

And here is one from the Rolex race:

In all three you can see how sparse the grass really is.

Trying to get grass to grow in NJ sand in the summer during a drought...yea, I can see why it was dusty.