Most of the camping that Aneel and I do is nature-oriented: state parks, natural preserves, national parks, and birding areas. On April 13-16, we did our first event type camping in Tourtoise and Hare at Circuit of the America (COTA) for MotoGP 2023.
COTA has a big camping area around back behind/to one side of the track. They do have a small amount of powered spots, but they sure don’t give much details about the camping situation. So we were actually unsure if you could reserve them or if everything was first come, first serve. The unpowered spots (just in a big field with gravel areas) are definitely first come, first serve.
I found an old blog from a number of years ago that said that they got a powered spot and, at the time, it was first come, first serve. So we decided to roll out early on Thursday and get there a little bit before gates opened for camping. We showed up about 45 minutes early or so, and they’d already let a bunch of people in because the line had backed up into the public road. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because turns out the powered spots are reserved, and according to one worker “they’re booked up for years in advance,” or so she thought. We tried to figure out how in the ever-loving hell you reserve them, but got nowhere on that line of investigation.
We set up in an area nearest the track that looked good to us. Turns out it wasn’t as close to the gate as we could have been, but all in all it was a good location. After setup, we went back home to work the rest of Thursday, then I came out later on Thursday evening and stayed through the rest of the event. Aneel joined me on Saturday after his welding class.
The field wasn’t very full even on Thursday evening, but by Friday mid-day, it was getting pretty crowded in the front and middle area. I don’t think the back back ever got crowded, but it was a good lesson that coming Thursday evening or Friday morning are both easy, doable options.
This was also our first time having an entire 3-day stay not on power or hooked up to water. We got the water tank up to 2/3 full at home, and had a full battery plus our solar panels. We also discussed how we could use the Rivian to power the Tourtoise if necessary. I really wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, so I was very conservative on both. I took one very brief shower and one fairly normal camping shower, and I only charged the necessities.
Ultimately, I had plenty plenty electricity left, and I’m positive that I could have run everything like normal. We were 2/3 full on both gray and black, so if I’d done water differently, I would have had to have either paid for a tank dump or run somewhere.
I did work from the trailer for a little over half a day on Friday, and that went pretty well! I had good cell service with the booster, and although it was pretty noisy there (the race track was very close by and they started practicing at 8am), my headphones filtered the noise great. Because I had 4-5 conference calls, I did chew through bandwidth and pretty much ran through the entire 15g Google-Fi service we have. Oops. (Aneel now wonders if backups actually helped eat the data).
The event was super fun, and I felt way more a part of it this year than all the other years (we’ve been going since 2013) because instead of just going on Sunday for the finals, I watched practices, qualifying, the new sprint, and finals.
The best part is not having to deal with traffic on the way there, rush to get there in the morning, and be able to have a few beers on Friday and Saturday and meander slowly and lazily back to camp. Also, I bought a couple of souvenirs for the first time because holy hell the lines are way way shorter on Friday and Saturday.
Also, what’s up with COTA only selling 3-4 trash beers now? Very disappointing. It was always ridiculous paying $12-15 for ONE beer, but at least they had some craft variety (I mean… not amazing, but a few okay choices). Now they have Heineken, Michelob Ultra, Bud Light, Voodoo Ranger IPA, and that’s pretty much it. There might have been 1 other choice maybe. For $15-20!!
Hanging out in the evening is less lovely than our normal camping because it’s just an empty field crowded with RVs (and the occasionally very shitty Trump flag). I did have a couple of good conversations with people interested in asking about the Rivian. I also walked around and looked at some of the RV setups. Saturday night, Aneel taught me his grandmother’s version of solitaire (she… was a masochist when it came to card games apparently).
A few lessons:
- Either decide to make packable lunches to take in or eat at the event itself because it really made more sense to have lunches at the event. Hiking out, eating food, hiking back in would have been 1 and a half hours minimum. Unlike beer options, they do actually have a few good food options.
- Figure out how to make evenings outside more comfortable.
- No need to come early Thursday.
- Plenty of power to last 3 days comfortably.
- Consider bringing progressive signage for passive aggressive flag battles.
@adrienne great trip report!!!