FIRST PERSON/OPINION

This just in, via e-mail:

Thank you, Roadracingworld.com . After your post came out I received multiple offers for rooming assistance, and also free representation by a lawyer-racer who said I had a legal stance. I have decided to take up the first offer that came, from Jim Race, AFM #250, and will join him at the Holiday Inn. He is a racer and long-time cornerworker with USARM, and has apparently attended and/or worked at every past GP and WSB race ever held at Laguna. In our brief phone conversation he had a wealth of local information for me, and I look forward to making a new friend out west. The fact that the Holiday Inn is three miles closer is icing on the cake. The manager you interviewed by phone at Embassy Suites (also named Jim) called my home, and after I described the arrangements down the road, renewed their earlier offer to pick up the tab for my first night and invited me in to their enjoy their free breakfast and evening wine-tasting affairs. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a win-win, so I will accept that offer. If Embassy Suites will instead give me complimentary voucher of equal value for one night at a hotel out here, I can score points with my wife and make it a win-win-win. Obviously, the lesson from this is to check your reservations, and keep hard copies AND an open mind. And please, three cheers for Jim Race! For you folks who only watch events on TV, I heartily recommend you go to a track and sign up to cornerwork. It’s not necessarily easy work, but it is very rewarding, and is literally the best seat in the house. If you don’t believe it’s important, watch the recognition that the racers give to them on the cool-down laps. You can find out more about cornerworking by visiting usarm.org, (they apparently cover car and motorcycle events at multiple venues) or usmarshalls.org. (The group that covers New Hampshire International Speedway, where I race.) There are never enough cornerworkers to go around, and the good/committed ones get respect equal to any racer in the paddock around the kegs at NHIS. B.J. Worsham “23 days and counting” Old Westbury, New York