They (track management), came up with a new t-shirt this year that reads on the back: 'The Fastest Road Course in North America'
:smile2:
I think that's been their motto since the early '80s. I had an old t-shirt from '87 or '88 that said something like that on it, but it had a car on it.
It was a real swamp back then.
In the late '70/early '80s, there was a small earthen dam around the outside of the Carrousel turn. It kept the swamp from overflowing onto the turn after a bad rain.
I remember being at an SCCA race one Sunday when a Datsun (610 I think) slid off the Carrousel out into the swamp. It was so far out there that they left it there until the afternoon's racing was over. When they dragged it in at the end of the day, there was still enough water in it that it had to be bailed out. There was a small fish in it. His buddies were joking about having it mounted and presented to him as a trophy. "Largest Fish Caught with a B-Sedan"...
In the mid '80s they backfilled the area outside of the turn and pushed the water back, now you had some run-off room. But the frogs and such would still come out of the swamp in the evening to sit on the warm asphalt. During the 24 Hours of Nelson, there would be lots of dead frogs on the Carrousel. During the 24 hour race in '88 or '89, I almost ran over a turtle at 2am because he parked his butt on the racing line. Someone eventually hit him, there were almost 50 bikes out there!
I hadn't thought of this for over 10 years...
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