2014 Cota Advice

Looks like you're near turn 2? We wandered over there between practice and qualifying looking for the fried pork sandwich from 2 years ago. No luck. Settled for a Fletcher's corn dog.

 

Great to see Friday morning Alan & Tillman, here's a few of mine. I took over 500+ photos.
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Hey. We're here like to see you guys. Great 3 d. Saw my old friend Alan yesterday.
We're in MG 108 row 9.
I'm the moron in the mask.
Not dead, not gonna miss race😃


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Just back...awesome race. Hoards and hoards of folks. Seemed like more than previous years. The event was perfect.
Even better...
Navy SEALs 'Leap Frogs' performed. Wife ran into the SEAL team after there jump. I felt like I was meeting superheroes. Very nice and surprisingly chatty group if 10. Wife and I personally thanked each one of them for their service to our country. Hope COTA has them back next year. Leap Frogs - U.S. Navy Parachute Team Media - LEAPFROGS.SEALSWCC.COM | Official Website U.S. Navy Parachute Team

 

NICE day for a race...perfect weather. We had a GREAT time, except Ferrari didn't win...

BUT.....odd question, did anyone else have ZERO signal on their phones yesterday? I tried to text a picture to someone, and it was stuck in "sending" mode for TWO HOURS!!!

I did manage to get a short "words only" text to make it through, but even it took like twenty minutes to finish sending. My buddy's phone was the same way. We could use the phones up until we got in through the gates, a few minutes later while trying to locate our friends at turn 1...NOTHING! As a result, we never did find them >:-(

Oh yeah, as soon as we left the gates and got a few miles down the road after the race ended, we both had signal again.

Does ANYONE have any theories, ideas, knowledge, etc... about why this happened?

Do they have signal blocking devices at the track for God-knows-what reason, is the track located in a horrible geographic area for cell signal, was it simply a mass concentration of too many people in too close proximity at one time that combined overloaded the cell networks?

For the record, I have Metro PCS using an LG F6 phone (android) that uses satellite technology instead of traditional cell phone towers...or so I'm told.

Any knowledge on this would be helpful...

 

George, unless you are a AT&T customer (the event sponsor) you are not going to get a signal out of that place. If anyone was data mining for personal info, this might have been a hackers free for all.

Thanks again for the Friday passes.

 

Being from Austin and having attended many of these large events here almost once every few months (ACL, SXSW, F1) I have gotten used to this. When there are tens of thousands of people all concentrated in a small area, the reception and message delivery drops to zero from time to time while you are inside the area. With every single person having a phone on them you can imagine how many phones are in a one mile radius. I work in downtown Austin and live outside the downtown area. During the 10 or so days of SXSW there are times where I have nothing come through my phone through out the day until I get home and my phone gets multiple texts/voicemails from earlier in the day all at once.

 

You are very welcome for the passes...glad to help!

O.K., so let me get this straight, AT&T was the official sponsor of the event (one of MANY event sponsors), so they decided, and were somehow able (technology-wise) to jam-up the signal of competitors phones so that only AT&T customers phones at the event would function?!?

And this under-handed nonsense is supposed to endear their company to me and make me want to BECOME their customer??? (NOT A CHANCE!!!)...or did AT&T simply bring some extra towers to help THEIR customers get call & text service...the competitor's customers be damned?

Thanks for the insight....

 

This makes sense too...

 

I wasn't there at COTA this year, but I have seen Sprint set up "COWS" or cell-on-wheels, at Texas Motor Speedway, to accomodate the concentration of Sprint customers at their sponsored event. It's not thar Sprint (or ATT) jams the cells of competitors. It's just that they beef up coverage and capacity of their own service at their own events.

 

Thanks for the clarification, Dave.

So basically, if going to a big event that's not sponsored by your carrier, prepare to be without signal.

 

No, I had no problems, with calls, texts or photos....I am on a open plan with Sprint, iPhone4S

Thanks Will!

I knew you would cme thru with the fine photos, so mine can just be "For atmosphere"...what a great day.

 

gf with her AT&T iPhone 5 had some issues receiving and sending texts. They would reach me from the beer line 20 minutes later.

iPhone 6 on AT&T with LTE, no issues at all.

 

Alvin Crow celebrates '50 Years of The Broken Spoke' tonight, I think Willie is coming.....

Oh, the race is over?????


Come on by!!!

 

I'd join you but back in California for a week or so.

I'll get in touch when I am back.

 

Thanks!!

Please do!!
Good to hang out, after all these years "chatting"!!!

 

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it might appeal to Texas folks and COTA locals. If it belongs somewhere else feel free to move it.

Got an email today that COTA is doing a Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal for all 5 major race events next year. F1, MotoGP, Le Mans, Pirelli World Challenge, and US Vintage Nationals. $222 for GA passes to all the races, all the days.

https://oss.ticketmaster.com/aps/cota/EN/promotion/home?cm_mid=4144658&cm_crmid=eb2aa91b-e2c3-e211-b32f-00155d011e02&cm_medium=email

Promo code is FIVE.

 

That's a good deal....have to log in first to get it...