A pretty good day at the track...

I got up this morning thinking about all the toys that must have been delivered while I slept. Today was Western Auto Journalist's Day here, and from what I saw come in the last couple of hours yesterday, it was going to be a pretty good day of oogling autos. I had no idea.

I didn't wake up to the zoom-zoom (Mazda's tagline -- it is everywhere here at Laguna Seca) because most of the stuff brought out was tame. Everyday rides for the most part, but there was some fun stuff. The new Jag was fun to see, as well as the Lotus - the new 300 which was being driven around outside the track... Saw a Fiat 500 (think Luigi from Cars), and some REAL American Muscle in the Mustang and Challenger that hit the track (THROATY and SEXY, is all that can be said).

I had no idea, however, that one of the most intriguing cars (both personally and worldwide) would be on-track. I wasn't prepared - I'd seen it in magazines and thought... meh. Its no '56 300SL Gullwing. (A car my dad owned and got rid of on a whim... bad Dad.. BAD.) However, I hadn't seen it in person, and now I'm a little smitten.

This will probably be THE car I'll remember from our time here. I've seen some pretty cool stuff, but this one leaves an imprint. Here it is going through turn 5.

Its all I had time to take, and wish I could have stayed a little longer to watch, but we came back and took a photo while it was in the paddock. Some little game that MBUSA was playing with a police car. Just take a look at the distance between the headrests... now look at your car - YEAH - its that wide.

Surprisingly - later on Mercedes also showed up with their latest project, the F-Cell cars. The F-CELL World Drive project (worldwide tour) is something that MB is using to try to raise awareness of alternative fuel technologies. They are a Hydrogen-based hybrid vehicle that emits ZERO emissions, and could change everything. These cars (3 class-B Mercedes) are driving around the world on an educational mission, and it was amazing to see everything behind what this trip takes - 2 semis, 3 F-Cell cars, two support vehicles (non-tagged), 4 vans with trailers, 1 personnel van, 1 GLK, and then the fuel truck, which carried a support crew of 2 trucks and 5 men). An INSANE amount of behind-the-scenes. Here's a link to learn more: click here.

The day ended well with lots of trucks taking lots of really fun, fancy rides away. I'm thinking I may need to change professions because these journalists - they get it all... New, fun rides in brilliant, free cars. On tracks, that noone gets to drive without spending tens of thousands of dollars. They write a few hundred words talking about what they did that day... SIGN. ME. UP. :)