A few random memories after all these years.

We flew out from the east coast into LAX, the drove the renter down to Long Beach. As we approached the elevator at the hotel, this motorcycle guy, helmet and leather jacket, held the door open until we got in. As we rode up, I took a better look at the guy. There were words on his helmet, and his shirt... It was Ronnie Peterson, Lotus driver and Mario's teammate that year.
Eating at the restaurant at the hotel one night, we could hear a lot of racing talk coming from a nearby table. It was the Fittipaldi team, all the mechanics and staff. And who sat down at the next table? Rob Walker, former team owner and author of all those great F1 reports in Road & Track that probably were a major contributor to my interest in F1. And we also bumped into Dennis Jenkinson, the famous British motorsports writer.

We had “Committee of 300” VIP tickets. The name sounds like the “tar and feather boys”, but they really appear to be something like the local group of civic do gooders. We weren’t anybody important, you could just pay extra in to their special enclave. They had a place for lunch and to hang out in quiet moments. And better seat choices. Music and dancing girls.

The pictures are sort of mixed up, the race when we were on the front straight, and practice, when we wandered around.

More comments under some photos. For an account of the race, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_United_States_Grand_Prix_West

There is a couple minutes of video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2NdMfj3LR4