A Note About California

Dear retailers,
Dear the rest of the country,
Dear Mother Nature,

It's October 6. I realize Alaska and Austria have already had snow. I realize the East Coast is swimming down their streets. And I realize it's officially the Halloween season.

But it's still summer here.

I further realize no one feels sorry for us Californians when we talk about the monotony of dry, 86-degree weather day after day, month after month. I get it. We're fortunate in a lot of ways. But our seasons are as every bit as screwed up as yours.

You all know about our high average temperatures. But there's something else about the climate out here you don't understand ... and it causes a hell of a lot of problems.

Summer in the rest of the world is June, July, and August.

Summer in California starts in mid-July and goes to mid-October.

Of course, we residents are all pretty used to this. But the rest of you aren't, and that's what causes us so many problems. (I'm looking at you, retailers.)

I've got plenty of examples:

• Summer supplies and clothing are taken out of stores in mid-July—right as it gets hot here.
  Which means there are four air conditioning units for sale at Home Depot when hundreds of overheated California residents go looking for one on July 22.
• Winter supplies and clothing appear in August.
  Which means it's 95 degrees outside and Target's featuring wool coats.
• Social media fills with comments and delight over fall weather, first rainfalls, and pumpkin-spice everything. Christmas decorations appear. It's late September.
  It's 95 degrees here, and we haven't seen rain in three years.

I'm not asking for sympathy, I'm merely explaining the flip side of sunny California. Though I do admit to wishing some enterprising store managers would buck their corporate orders and keep appropriate stock on shelves for an extra month. 

And if anyone wants to stock up on air conditioning units next May, come September, you could make a killing selling them at two or three times face value. Something to consider...

Sincerely,

Still Roasting in Southern California

Finally Cooled Down

It was HOT last weekend during the run up to IndyCar's season finale race in Fontana, CA. Standing in the pits for qualifying on Friday afternoon (at 2 p.m., in August, 60 miles inland from the ocean), ambient temperature was 99F and the track temp was 137F. The heat radiating up from the concrete and asphalt was intense.

It made for an odd race weekend: practice at 10 a.m. Friday, qualifying at 2 p.m., and evening practice before sundown. All for a race that would take the green after the sun went down on Saturday—or at least after the sun dipped below the edge of the Speedway. The reason? Not the heat so much as the glare of the sun. Turns out, it's not a great idea to be blinded when you're flying down the back straight at 220 m.p.h.

Yes, you see that speed correctly. On the Auto Club Speedway's speed-billboard (standing in Turn 1 to catch top-speed on the front straight), I saw a high of 226 m.p.h., and the driver who took me around for a hot lap on Saturday (at noon, in a Camaro, with air conditioning going full blast) said the drivers in the race would easily hit 220. We topped out at 130 m.p.h.

After that Saturday hot lap, my friend @cogitoergobibo and I repaired to an air-conditioned restaurant for a late lunch, and then to our hotel rooms to cool off again. We ventured out again at 4 p.m. (still hot) to make the tweet-up with Pippa. (That's us, @cogitoergobibo, me, and Pippa; photo stolen from Pippa's photo album from the Fontana weekend.)

The sun started to go down, and we made our way to the temporary stage on the front straight where driver intros would happen. We had IndyCar Fan Nation access to be inside the rope line to watch drivers come out to the stage—and the first one down the line, working the crowd the whole way, was Mario Andretti.

And then it was nearly race time. We scrambled off the front grid and made it to our viewing spots in time for the green flag. I was lucky enough to be in a seat on the rooftop deck of the pit suites for most of the race—which was a perfect view and a perfect temperature. If you look closely at the photo below, you'll see the green flag was waving, and Helio Castroneves had taken the lead before the line.

After the race, we wandered between celebrations (Tony Kanaan's for winning the race, Will Power's for winning the championship) and finally made our way back to the car and the hotel. We passed In 'n' Out on the way, surprised at the enormous line at 11:30 p.m.—but maybe we shouldn't have been surprised, because according to Twitter, half of the paddock was there post-race.

Sunday was another adventure, as we headed into downtown LA for the IndyCar Championship Celebration. I got to handle Pippa's cell phone camera as she and her husband walked the red carpet, and then we chatted with new and old friends inside. It was a (mercifully) short ceremony, and then the season was over.

Thank goodness we had Monday, to recover, is all I have to say.

Once again, the "trip" to the race proved hugely valuable. I finished connecting with IndyCar last weekend—literally and figuratively. I've made some great new friends (all thanks to social media) who've been incredibly supportive and helpful about connecting me to more readers and resources: I put my first book in Sarah Fisher's hands on Friday, thanks to one friend (info on her, for my non-race-fan readers), and on Sunday I connected with the Director of Communications for IndyCar, who offered to help me with whatever I needed to write about IndyCar accurately (and forever!).

The business of racing really does happen at the race, but the family of racing is also vibrant and present every race weekend. I'm starting to really feel like one of the family, and it's a pretty neat feeling.

If you want to follow great racing writers, fans, and racers, check out @cogitoergobibo, @stevewittich, @tonydizinno, @nasarcasm, and @pippamann. They're good people.