Uncorked at Laguna Seca (Revised)

There was huge machine gun strapped to the car on my left. I sat there thinking about what I was about to do and how I can potentially mess up. The CHP car started to move toward the track. I did my best to hold the flag straight up and down. I tried to fasten it to the side of the door with my leg, but the weight of the pole made this too hard. The officers assured me we wouldn’t go too fast, but I knew even 40 miles an hour around the track would be hard and most likely cause me pain.

The sound of unrestricted race cars, the smell of racing gas, riding around the track in a CHP car and the feeling of being surrounded by millions of dollars is how I spent last weekend.

At Lagua Seca raceway there was an event called Uncorked. It was a no noise restriction event put on by Club Auto Sport, an elite club for the wealthier car junkies. All the proceeds of the event went to the Monterey SPCA.

There were many racing events this weekend. The most exciting was a historic Nascar race where people who now own actual Nascars, signed by the original driver, raced. Another event that took place was called, “Ride of Your Life”, where people previously bid on EBay for the chance to ride as a passenger on the racetrack. The cars of choice were the Bugatti Veyron and Indy Car with Danny Sullivan multiple winner of the Indy 500.

I arrived at the track before most of the Club Auto Sport crew, so I was awe struck when at 6:00pm Friday night million dollar RVs around 60 feet long, towing 40 foot trailers started showing up. Once they started unloading, the gems inside the trailers started appearing, Ferraris, Porches, Lamborghinis, Nascars and Indy Cars.

This event was free to the public, and took place Saturday and Sunday. I was there as a guest of family friend Jim Doyle, former World Champion Kenny Robert’s manager.


Around lunchtime another family friend who is a CHP officer rode his R1 replica CHP bike around the track along with two other CHP officers. They went out for the national anthem holding flags. This task turned out to be more difficult then expected given the long length of the poles. One of the CHP officers asked me to ride as his passenger to hold the pole, because he could not. The flag was attached to a 10 foot long PVC pipe and was very difficult, even as a passenger, to hold, but it was definitely worth the muscle cramps experienced later.

After the parade lap with the CHP officers the main motorcycle race took place. The most surprising part of the race was the winner. Out of 40 participates most of which were 20-40 year old men, a 15 year old girl won. She was only around 5 feet tall, yet could control the bike better than most.

This event was amazing; it’s not every day that I have to get out of the way of a Nascar coming of the track. The only downside was the charity of choice. The Monterey SPCA refused to come to the event which angered many of the higher-ups. The unofficial total raised for them was over 100,000 dollars and they didn’t seem to care, but they will pick a new charity for next year.

I knew the corkscrew was coming up, my favorite part of the track. I was secretly hoping before we got there the CHP officer would slow down enough to form a gap between us and the other officers, then he could accelerate to catch up. Fast into the first turn, Left, then a quick right. It’s so steep that even at 40 mph it felt like a roller coaster. Then we rounded turn 10, I knew the lap was going to end soon, just one more turn and we would pull off. By this point the muscles in my arm were burning, but I knew I could hold on for a couple more seconds. The flag was lifting of the ground fighting with me to be set free, but as the pace car that was once leading us pulled of the track I knew I did it.