Bourdais' Victory Lap

Sebastian Bourdais' victory donut in front of us on the Almaden Hairpin at the San Jose Grand Prix.

San Jose Grand Prix

I just finished attending three days of racing with friends at the inaugural San Jose Grand Prix in downtown San Jose.

We had great seats on the hairpin turn on Almaden Boulevard (row 6, section 3B). There were six different race series over the course of three days. The fastest were the open-wheel, open-cockpit Champ Cars that would bomb down to the hairpin at speeds of up to 180MPH, brake hard to 30MPH, and then pull away trying to fly into turn four. My favorite race series was probably the Champ Car Toyota Atlantic Championship which was won by an up and coming female driver named Katherine Legge. These are smaller, lower HP open-wheel style cars - their racing was much more dynamic given the agility of the cars on what was described as the tightest track on the Champ Car circuit.

We were part of a group of twelve from Hitachi. Our group was part of a bigger group, the Fiat Car Club, that bought something like 120 tickets.

I will definitely go back to the race next year.

Website:
http://www.sanjosegrandprix.com/

Track layout:
http://www.sanjosegrandprix.com/event_trackmap.html

Picture album:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=843762467203&page=1&sort_order=0