New Grandstand --
2002
Walking through the pits Saturday morning
the first thing that caught my eye was the gargantuan new grandstand.
The sheer size & scale of the thing floored me.
This monstrous structure dominates the
pit area. The top row luxury skyboxes serve the corporate elite.
At the Wine Country Classic, the empty aluminum bench seating below reflects
sunlight and heat, forming a blinding solar oven. Not a problem with
sellout NASCAR crowds covering every seat! Everything at the now
NASCAR-owned Sears Point is scaled towards tending to the hundreds of thousands
of free-spending stock car fans who throng to NASCAR events.
The overwhelming giantism of all this amazed this historic racing aficionado
who remembers when Sears Point was new.
The familiar bridges that once crossed
the course near Start/Finish are gone. At enormous expense, NASCAR
has replaced them with tunnels. None of these changes and additions
are bad. How else could NASCAR handle the huge crowds that attend
today's Winston Cup events?
Next: New
Hillside Seating -- 2002
Back to: Sears
Point 2002 -- Homepage
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