The first race of the season… OK – In reality it was the second race but does the ROLEX 24 really count?

Sure, team points and such come into play but the ROLEX 24 is such a hooplah of drivers mixed in from other series and it throws a wrench into the works for the Grand-Am regulars who open their seats for these interlopers. After all, Juan Pablo Montoya was in the seat of the Ganassi 01 Telmex BMW when it crossed for the win. The rest of the season is on the shoulders of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas while Montoya chases the NASCAR circuit.

So – The Circuit of the Americas was the first race of 2013 that put all the season regulars on the track without distraction of visitors. It was also a big run for Grand-Am as the course in Texas is brand new with barely a scrape following the Formula 1 Grand Opening in 2012.

As it turned out at the finish, Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty took the checkers for GAINSCO/Bob Stallings as the red Daytona Prototype Corvette took the lead following a crunch-up with a GT car by the Starworks team.

We didn’t see it… We were upset…

We had spent the day hopping aircraft to make a snow-covered destination for a skiing vacation. However, we made our accomodations with an hour left in the race so flipped on the TV to see the latter part, even before we opened the first suitcase, only to find that SPEED channel was not on the system.

Wha….? SPEED…? Not on the service. They had HBO, SyFy, 3 ESPNs, BBC, History and fourteen Spanish channels as well as a host of other top tier programs. But no SPEED…? It’s basic freakin’ cable! But no!

And it’s not like we were at some cut-rate facility! Slopeside at Aspen/Snowmass! Come on!

If anyone might be interested in Porsches, Ferraris, Astons, BMWs, Corvettes and such it would be folks in Aspen that can afford to drive the things! But Noooooooo….!

Not only was there no Grand-Am but no pre-race coverage for NASCAR at Phoenix while sipping coffee and slipping on boots for the slopes. No recap later… Dammit!

At least we do have BBC so we can keep up with Clarkson, Hamster and Cpt. Slow…

But no SPEED! Might as well stop eating steak while we’re at it…

For full results from the Circuit of the Americas and the Grand-Am ROLEX Sports Car series, visit Grand-Am online. They watched it so they would know…