Road racing has always been a spectacle that's had my partially-divided attention. I say partially-divided, because I remember my first ever trip to Road Atlanta. It was a crisp day in November and I was with my father and a couple friends from his job. The whole environment was a sensory overload to me. Sights, sounds, smells; and those were all just in the pit area. I've always been drawn to the environment of the race track, often more so than the races themselves. There's just something about seeing the crowds, the participants, and the cars, all together in a sort of automotive playground that lies behind-the-scenes.
I've since visited Road Atlanta more times than I can count, but now I'm trying to expand my horizons. Being away at a school 200 miles from Atlanta, it isn't very convenient to head up to Braselton for events held at Road Atlanta, especially since most are held during the school year. Instead, I've had to look into motorsport in south Georgia. Surprisingly, I've discovered several venues and events, and I decided to attend one this past weekend.
Many Georgians are familiar with River Street, an authentic cobblestone thoroughfare that runs alongside the vast Savannah river. What many visitors may not be familiar with, however, is what lies on the other side.
One only needs to cross the picturesque Talmadge Memorial bridge and turn right, and they will happen upon something they probably weren't expecting to find: a race track. Built in 1997, this 2 mile course consists of 10 corners that wind through the stunning marshland. This unlikely race track hosts the Savannah Speed Classic, a four-day long historic road-racing series. This year I was there to watch part of it.
I was one of the first spectators to arrive, at 9 o'clock on the dot, so I set off to explore the still-incomplete vendor's area.
Walking into the vendor area, I immediately realized this event was not what I was expecting. What I came across were many high end vehicles put on display by their respective dealerships in the area. The first one I came across was Jaguar, which I will return to more in-depth later.
It was still early in the morning, and Critz BMW only had one vehicle out on display, the eye-catchingly rare Z8. Something that's really hard for me to understand about this car is why the gauges were mounted in the center of the dashboard. Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was Toyota Echo.
Moving on, I see that Porsche of Hilton Head is at the end of the decidedly-short line. This is also a spot I will return to later, so on that note, I head to the pit area.
This is where the fun starts. Catching my eye immediately is the shape of something out of the ordinary. This, of course, turns out to be an Alfa Romeo.
Behind this Alfa, I see more of them. Naturally, I go to investigate. What I came upon were a couple of race-ready Spyders and friendly gentleman named Craig. As it turns out, Craig has been around Alfas all his life, starting out as a young boy in South Africa, watching these everyday cars monster their competition. It's now been 36 years that he's been working on Alfas at his shop in Jacksonville Florida and he says he still can't get enough of them. After about fifteen minutes of conversation I said goodbye to Craig and continued on my expedition through the pit area.
This being a classic sports car event for the fairly-affluent, it was no surprise that I quickly ran across some beautiful racing-spec Porsche 911s. Soon, I was running back and forth throughout the pits, trying to snag shots that I hoped would coincide with my artistic vision. Happily, most of them turned out the way I wanted them to.
It's also worth noting that at these events I tend to explore pretty much every area of the venue. This isn't necessarily because I'm going on some sort of twisted Where's Waldo mission, but because there always seems to be something in the background that catches my eye, whether it be the land yacht known as the CL63 Mercedes, or a Ford GT, adorned with the same Gulf dressage as its LeMans-winning predecessor. the GT40. In my opinion, the strange looks are worth it when I can come across some cool stuff.
To have some mercy on your internet connection, I've decided to break this up into two postings, so look out for part two!
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