Watching the races in style: Sports Car Endurance Racing at COTA

We went to the Circuit of the Americas to watch the endurance racing. The Lone Star Le Mans / Six Hours of the Circuit of the Americas contained many fabulous cars. Since Alan is the proud owner of a Grand Cherokee SRT, it allowed us to be able to purchase SRT hospitality tickets to the races. This turned out to be one excellent way to watch a race!

The SRT brand runs across the Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep family; it's the hot versions of some of their cars. The Dodge Vipers are the racing cars, although the other breeds were represented on the SRT stand at the main square in the circuit.

This is me with one of the Viper SRT cars - I think this is last year's car, on the SRT stand.

Here's the garage, in the pit area. They are removing the bonnets/hoods from the cars. Also in here is the white Viper Exchange car; I think this was technically a separate team but they seem to share the facilities.

We were thoroughly looked after over the two days. The SRT folks had one of those big trucks whose sides expand to create space inside and outside. It was pretty awesome. The hosting staff were super friendly and welcoming. Here's breakfast:

They catered breakfast, lunch and on Saturday, dinner as well, for us. Lunch was served on nice COTA plates, and was good quality tasty food.

We were also given goody bags filled with Lone Star Le Mans merchandise, and later on they gave us some really nice SRT-branded water bottles. I have to say, the ticket price for this was very good value. If we had bought normal tickets, by the time we bought food and drink we'd have spent the same amount, and this way we have a lovely home base to watch the race from, all the water we can drink, free beer, nice restrooms... it's a veritable bastion of civilization!

Another nice perk was getting to have a few minutes with the Viper drivers, who came to the truck on Friday to say a few words.

We were also allowed into the VIP area in the SRT garage; again, we could help ourselves to drinks from the fridge and watch the mechanics do their thing at closer quarters.

And when it came time to watch some track action, we could stand on top of the truck and get this view looking up into Turn 1 (spot the Viper on the track). This was a prime spot from which to cheer on the Vipers, directly opposite their Snake Pit - and it must have worked, since the Vipers came in 1 and 2 in their GTLM class, while the Viper Exchange car won the GTD category. Congratulations, Vipers! Clicky for details

So thanks, SRT people, for providing us with a splendid facility and hospitality within which to enjoy the weekend. It was great!

If you want to see some of the track action, click here for my photo gallery from the weekend.

Bonus picture: here's a lovely orange Viper SRT. This belonged to another crowd who were doing rides around the track. It's the same colour as my Jeep, so of course has to be included here :-)