SVRA COTA 2018
Every year we really look forward to the SVRA’s stop here at Circuit of the Americas. As we pulled up to COTA, we casually saw a Ford GT40 pass by. It might’ve been a replica but lets just go with it being real. That’s the kinda of vehicles that’s common to see at this event. The great thing about the SVRA series is that they’re rarely just parked for display. Many of these cars are out on the track in bumper to bumper racing.
I think the biggest attraction to this event is that accessibility to see all the cars in the paddock area and all the diversity.
Watching the Formula Vee cars take to the track is always great to see. They’re all about open wheel, open cockpit, and great power to weight ratio. The thinner tire they run make for some counter steering fun if you put the power down too aggressively. There different shapes of the body’s make for some unique designs.
The next cars out consisted of some more modern Ferraris, Porsche, and to our surprise a couple of Vipers.
The next batch of cars looked as if i had travelled back to the 70s and 80s. There was your usual samples of BMW 2002s, classic Porsche 911s, and Datsuns. What was a surprise were the rarely seen Alfa Romeo GTAs, BMW 3.0 CSLs, and the comical MR2 with Corona beer livery!
For the first time we got to experience the vintage motorcycles. Now when we saw this in the schedule, we were excited to see some early 1900s Harleys and Indians. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and we hope this changes for next year. Nevertheless, the sample of late 80s motorcycles were a great showing.
The classic Mustangs, Corvettes, and occasional Camaros, put on a hell of a show! We got to catch them during turn 7 to turn 9 and these guys were racing without holding back. We saw many of them going up to 3 wide in some parts that are questionable to even be 2 wide. This group was definitely the treat of the weekend.
We’re excited to see Indy racing at COTA but thankfully we were able to get a sneak preview of some Indy cars racing on COTA…. but from past cars.
This was the point where we regret not bringing our earplugs (turns out we had them in our bags but didn’t search hard enough for them). The Trans Am series cars were blasting by us on the back straight to come to a fast stop when approaching turn 12. Our favorite part was seeing the flames coming out of the side exhaust pipes and late braking passings.
Overall the weekend was filled with great cars, unbelievably great cool weather, and spectacular racing! Only downside is having to wait another year to have the series come back.
Thanks again to the team at SVRA for the media access and the incredible COTA safety team for being the unsung heroes of the weekend.
