AustinF1

By the way, the bump issue was even worse than the riders expected... The track's in bad shape. Riders this year talked about bumps forcing their butts off their seats and their feet getting knocked off the pegs at high speed on the back straight. Then there was Aleix Espargaro, who broke both lock stops at over 200 mph: Here's Espargaro & Danilo Petrrucci after Friday practice this year. They aren't talking about ripples in the braking zone. This is the part that COTA should be most worried about - how quickly the track has become so bumpy. Rossi & Jack Miller: Dovizioso: It's bumpy everywhere. Not sure if it can be fixed without a total rebuild...

Hey Nick, I feel your friend's pain re: the GA experience at COTA. They are definitely not friendly to General Admission fans. However, it seems like someone gave him some bad info. GA is open all the way from where the tunnel crosses under the front straight up past turn 1, all the way down the east side of the track (T1-11), and around T11 to the premium RV lot. Then it picks up again at T16 & 17, then again at 18-20. It was probably a clueless or misinformed temp worker, as practically everyone you see on a race day there works for some temp agency. It's a rare thing to actually see someone who works for COTA. It's sad that they won't get better workers at the facility and educate them in a way that's helpful to the fan experience, but that's COTA for you. I feel bad that his trip to COTA was ruined by that kind of bad service. We hear about things like this over and over and over again. People say we're anti-COTA, but we aren't. We want people to come here and have a good time in Austin and enjoy the racing at the track. We try to help people do that as much as we can, because COTA's certainly not going to do it.

Texas May Give F1's US Grand Prix Its Missing $25 Million https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/05/09/sports/ap-car-f1-us-grand-prix-finances.html https://apnews.com/d0e1cf252bd342d7a68c9d2d5ffd1f54

Indeed. This is like a Legislative Time Machine, where you just pay a fee to go back in time and change laws to fit your massive miscues.

So what do you do if you're COTA/Epstein and you screwed the pooch on your application for $25M of free taxpayer subsidy money? Why of course you just flaunt the law, cry "Unfair!" when it's enforced, and then get a friendly legislator from way out in West Texas to introduce tailor-made stealth legislation, changing the law ... retroactively ... so it's like you never effed up in the first place. It seems COTA has pushed legislation that would retroactively allow them to collect the ~$25M they lost when they botched their 2018 F1 MERP application. HB 4008 would change the law, effective RETROACTIVELY, to cover COTA's ass on their own failure to comply with the law.

After COTA repairs, MotoGP riders hope 'Horsepower Rodeo' is less bumpy https://www.statesman.com/sports/20190411/after-cota-repairs-motogp-riders-hope-horsepower-rodeo-is-less-bumpy The article incorrectly states that "The section including Turns 9, 10 and 11 was fully repaved". In fact, the repave did not include Turns 9 or 11. Only Turn 10 was repaved. As for the Statesman labeling as 'theories' the comments that the bumps might be caused by the soil conditions, that's a fact, not a theory. It's not the weather or F1 cars as COTA continues to suggest LOL.

Austin: Riders doubtful of COTA bump fix https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/917399/1/riders-doubtful-cota-bump-fix

Michelin re: COTA Bumps: "We don't know what to expect in Austin" for MotoGP https://t.co/SIwgx0DnOu