Originally Posted by FormerFF
Nearly all of them, at both races. I was at Sebring last year, and everyone I met was both interested and knowledgeable. The old theory was that it was just a place for drunken college kids on Spring Break just isn't true. If anything, the crowd skews a little older than the Petit LeMans.
Race crowds are a lot saner than they used to be. When I first started going to races (1972), they were wild. You'd show up in the morning, there'd be guys passed out in the mud. Anybody remember the bog at Watkins Glen? Guys would bring old beater cars and drive them thorough the bog. If they got stuck, somebody would set the car on fire. At the 1973 six hour/Can-Am, I think there were four burned out cars in the bog on Sunday morning. One year somebody stole a Greyhound bus and it got burned in the bog. The next year track management filled it in.
Have you been to a ALMS race for the pit walk? It's the most amazing thing. They open the pits for the pit walk and about 5000 people stream in. Everybody slowly walks by the cars for 15 or 20 minutes, then the announcement goes out to clear the grid. Everyone starts to leave, no fuss, no bother. It's the most well behaved large crowd I've ever seen.