Home Track

Home tracks – every racer has one. For some, it may be the track nearest to where you live. For others, it may be the track you started racing at or the track where you perform the best. For most people, it’s likely to be the track where you’ve spent the most time. If you’re fortunate enough to live near Watkins Glen, Road America, Lime Rock Park, Road Atlanta, Seattle International or most any track in the East, then your home track is probably a beautiful, bucollic setting, nestled in tree-lined hills. Aaaah, it warms the cockles of my heart just thinking about it. For those of us who live in Southern California, the picture is not quite as rosy. For racers as far south as the Mexican border and as far north as Santa Barbara, our home track (in fact until recently, our only track) has been Willow Springs Raceway.

Recently, I was giving a speech at the wedding of Alex Seiler, my long-time friend, racing teammate and business partner. As part of the process of raking him over the coals in front of one hundred or so of his family and friends, it became necessary for me to try and describe to the collected audience this place where he and I have wasted so much of our adult lives together. Somehow, I had to boil down the essence of this place into one or two sentences. What I ended up telling them was, “Picture, if you will, a lovely little spot that combines the scenic beauty of the surface of Mars… with all the accommodations of a Mississippi prison camp.” That – in a nutshell – is Willow Springs.