Auto Racing Bucket List

I know, if you read this blog, it's inevitable you'll run across one of my posts about it, most likely The Day of Racing, as I've termed it.  However, I have actually spectated races from the venue in person, as opposed to just watching on TV, and I do have a list of races I'd like to watch in person sometime.  I even looked all of them up on Google to be sure I had the right names and locations.  So if there's any inaccuracies, blame Google.

But first, places I've been to watch races in the past:

• Richmond International Raceway, Richmond, VA - I forget if it was an IndyCar race or a NASCAR race, to be honest.  At oval courses, you always prefer to get seats higher up in the grandstands, so you can see the entire oval from one spot.  The only thing that sucks about having seats that high up?  The longer walk to concessions/the bathroom.
• Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN - I've been to a few of the Formula 1 races they held there.  This is where I got my Ferrari hat from.  Our seats were in Indy turn 4, which was the perfect place to sit because you could see the entire front straight and first several corners leading onto the back straight.  Thankfully, I was at home watching on TV during the six-car farce thanks to Michelin not bringing durable enough tires that year.

Now, places I'd like to go to see a race at some point:

• Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, VA - The shortest track on the NASCAR calendar, and always a great source of entertainment.
• Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium - One of the best tracks on the F1 calendar.  I'd love to have a seat at the first hairpin where I can see all the way down the hill to Eau Rouge.  This track is where this legendary pass for the lead happened.  In fact, here, have the onboard from Hakkinen.  Listen closely as he lifts the first time through Eau Rouge, but then not the second time.  Balls of fuckin' steel, man.  Fun fact: Hakkinen was the only person who was ever able to defeat Schumacher in his prime.
• Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Another great F1 track.  I'd either want to sit at the hairpin just before the final straight, on the outside of the corner; or along the front straight, closer to the first and second turns, but where I can still easily see the cars coming through the final chicane.
• Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN - I still feel incomplete as an auto racing fan, having been to multiple races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, none of them having been the Indianapolis 500.  So hopefully I can see an Indy 500 live and in person sometime.
• Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, OH - All jokes about being stuck in Ohio aside, this is one of the many great road courses in the US, and I'd love to see a race there.
• Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI - Yet another great road course in the US.  Dat elevation change on the front straight.
• Sears Point Raceway, Sonoma, CA - Because screw calling it "Infineon Raceway" or "Sonoma Raceway".  Another of the great road courses in the US, which gets used for a variety of forms of racing, including NHRA drag racing.  I'll take either IndyCar or NASCAR, though.
• Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Salinas, CA - While we're in California, how about yet another amazing US road course?  This course is where "the pass" happened, which of course was Alex Zanardi passing Bryan Herta in the corkscrew and going off the track in the process, which apparently wasn't against the rules at the time.
• Watkins Glen International, Watkins Glen, NY - The other NASCAR road course, but I'll throw a curve ball here and say I'd rather see a series that races the full International circuit, such as the IMSA Tudor United Sports Car Championship or the Rolex Sports Car Championship, or the Continental Tire Sports Car Championship, or whatever the name of that series is.  It's the Le Mans-style one.  It has about 50 different names.  Pick one.  Even if they're actually different series, they're all pretty much the same: endurance racing with driver changes.

As you can see, there's kind of a long and eternally incomplete laundry list of US road courses (there's New Jersey Motorsports Park (what exit?), and Circuit of the Americas, for sure), and then a few from other countries.