by Mike Fuori on Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 3:39pm ·
#15: The Storm of Nov 2000- The Night I Almost Slept in the Infield Bathroom
Many
of the most vivid memories we have from the past 25 years at AMS
unfortunately involve the weather. With races in March and November
(beyond about 10 years ago), Atlanta race fans really got the raw end of
the deal several times, especially in the ‘90s… key word being “raw”.
If you used only race weekends in the 1990’s at Atlanta as data for a
climate change study, you’d be screaming at people to head south,
because it seemed to just get colder and colder. I couldn’t remember
the year, but after looking back at weather data, I found that it was
the November 17-19th, 2000 race weekend when we experienced the most
miserable weather of all our trips to the track. Remember when I said I
almost slept in the turn 3 bathroom? Long story...
On
Saturday afternoon, a mixture of light rain and sleet began to fall at
the track, as temperatures hovered in the mid-upper 30s. The rain was
intermittent and light through the evening hours, and temperatures
remained steady in the 35-38 degree range. We all decided to go to
sleep, so my dad, cousin and friend Dave got in our tent, and my dad’s
friend Mike and his son got in theirs. Long time friend Stan and his
son slept in the back of their van as usual. We managed to fall asleep
despite the cold and the tapping, crackling sound of rain and wind
hitting the tarps we had draped over our tent to stay dry. Attached to
our tent is a folding canopy (like you see at outdoor events), with
makeshift walls made of tarps that are attached to the canopy top with
large memo-clips (yeah, the ones in your desk drawer) and bungee cords.
This was mostly to keep some heat from our kerosene heater from
escaping, but also to keep all our food, cooking equipment, TV and other
items dry. Sometime after midnight, I woke up, as the rain was now
getting heavier and louder when it hit the tarps. Then, I kept hearing
this snap and ping sound as the wind started to pick up, and realized it
was the memo clips popping off the canopy and the tarps. Not good. I
got out of bed to find Dave in our “living area” under the canopy,
trying his best to keep the tarps up. I woke up my dad and we started
helping out. I remember turning on my weather radio, being the weather
nerd I am, and listening to the robotic NOAA radio broadcast, and
hearing “current temperature at Peachtree City (the closest site to the
track) is 35 degrees with heavy rain. Um, yeah that sounded about
right.
Based on the data I found from that night, it says
winds never got higher than 12mph. I beg to differ. Our friend Mike’s
tent had been blown up against the fence after he and his son decided to
sleep in their truck. It was windy. At some point, we remembered that
our bags of clothes where sitting underneath the canopy, and they were
now pretty much soaked, as the memo clips continued to snap and the
bungees stretched out in the wind. The canopy was basically a big sail
at this point, but my dad and Dave stood on lawn chairs and tried their
best to hold the tarps up to block the rain from coming in and keep the
canopy from flying away. As they stood there with rain pouring off the
canopy, down their arms and into their faces, my cousin Greg and I
grabbed all our clothes and anything else important and threw them in
the cab of the single cab truck we came in. Once all that was safe, my
dad and Dave gave up, and we just let the storm have its say. This
meant we couldn’t sleep in the tent though, because it was soaked and
unprotected from the wind… and it was freakin’ cold. So my dad decided
to throw a tarp over our truck bed viewing platform and sleep
underneath. At least it would be dry. I don’t remember exactly, but I
think Dave toughed it out in the tent. Greg and I only had the cab of
the truck left as an option. Again, it’s a single cab and now it has
all our clothes in the passenger side… so we had to try to sleep sitting
up, me in the driver’s side and Greg in the middle. Again, still cold,
but at least it was dry. Unfortunately, the clothes we were wearing
were not, and since sleeping bags weren’t possible all we had was one
blanket. The temperature remained a steady 35. Greg and I were
freezing, so we both got out and ran to the bathrooms because they had
heat and hand dryers. At least we could thaw out for a second and get
our hands warm, maybe dry off our clothes a little. This is the point
we seriously considered going back to get our air mattresses and
bringing them to the bathroom to sleep on the floor. We almost did it.
Instead we went back to the truck. Greg fell asleep, and gradually
spread himself out on the seat, pushing me up against the door as I lay
awake, still. Somehow, I eventually fell asleep for a while, and woke
up in the morning with my face pressed up against the window and Greg
comfortably laying in the seat next to me. There was still a light
rain. It stopped by early afternoon, but the track was soaked, and the
race was postponed until Monday, so on top of that miserable night, we
didn’t even get to see a race, since we all had to go back to work or
school.
The best part of the whole thing though was after
we’d all woken up Sunday morning and dried everything off and put
everything back in place, Stan got out of his cozy, warm and dry van and
told us, “ I heard all you guys last night and saw you trying to keep
the tent up and the tarps from blowing away and saw all the rain… and I
thought about coming out to help you but I laid there and thought… what
can I do?” Gee, thanks.
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