Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

FIRST PERSON/OPINION

Via e-mail:

In response to (Laguna Seca General Manager) Ms. Gill Campbell about the horrendous traffic issues at Laguna Seca, I have a suggestion.

There are only three routes into/out of the track. Has anyone ever thought that it might be fairly easy to designate one route as both in and out of the track at all times, while the other two routes are lanes in-only from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and lanes out-only from, say, 4:00 p.m. until track closing that night?

Laguna Seca is a world-class venue that gets poor marks for the traffic situation at every race weekend.

One thing to keep in mind: The sooner folks get out of the track and back to Monterey or Salinas
or wherever, the sooner they get to start spending their cash in the surrounding community. Seems like a win-win to me, and a fairly simple-to-institute solution to a very real problem.

Pat Stricker
Nipomo, California


Note: Stricker is referring to an earlier post, 7/15/2003 Laguna Seca GM Responds To Traffic Complaints


And now a response from Ms. Campbell:

Unfortunately as great as a suggestion as that is, all of our roads are County roads and the police and fire will not allow us to use any of them as one-way systems as they need to be able to have emergency access. South Boundary is actually controlled by multiple elements – Del Rey Oaks, CHP and BLM. We also have to pay insurance on that road as it is not generally open to the public!

Highway 68 is designated as a scenic highway and so will never be widened!

We do our very best with what we have available, we wish we could do more and we are constantly re-evaluating the situation. I will tell you however that at Infineon Raceway during their largest event, NASCAR, it takes 4 hours to get out of the parking lots. Our average time is a little over an hour at the peak times.

Remember, people enter over a period of about 5 hours and we get them all out in a little over an hour, there are only so many cars that can be on any road at one time.

Our lives are not easy here!

Gill Campbell
General Manager
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca



And now this, from another reader:

I read with interest the e-mails on traffic at Laguna Seca. As I have been attending races there since 1971, I think I have a few ideas to throw into the mix.

First, I think that the CHP should stay on duty past 5:00 p.m. I was in line, going down the hill to route 68, when I observed the officers go to their cars and stop controlling traffic at about 5 minutes to 5:00 p.m., only half-an-hour after the 2nd World Superbike race ended.

I left early this year for personal reasons. My suggestion to race fans is to wait it out for at least 2 hours after the final race. That will relieve traffic. I was able to exit fairly quickly this year.

I also think that the center exit road, the one that goes down the hill from turn two, should be closed–it eventually reaches the same point as the main road from 68 that winds up to the guard shack. Laguna Seca should route the traffic to the other, longer, exit road that leads to the west entrance and keep that center road closed.

Laguna Management should also use the AM-feed 840 radio station to update traffic conditions locally at the exits. This would be very easy to do and people could be alerted by AM radio as to the extent of the back-up. I have numerous other suggestions for the AM radio station, which I have e-mailed to Laguna management numerous times, but they still insist on allowing dead air to exist–there are so many great uses for a dedicated racing crowd, and imagine the extra revenue from ads that Laguna could tap, but that subject is off-subject here.

Finally, Laguna management should urge the folks down in the booths to announce post-race, 20% off sales. That would keep a lot of people at the track taking advantage of the best deals…this would also allow vendors to clear out inventory that they would otherwise have to take back to their shops. Of course, the booth announcers could use the loud P.A. system to announce traffic conditions and urge people to wait it out. They could also announce traffic conditions as they un-wind.

Dave Johnson
Shingletown, California