Savouring the spectacle of Sebring

Sometimes you don't appreciate what you've got until it's gone. I've been guilty of that in the past, both in the real world and when it comes to motor racing. Which is why I'll be savouring my trip to Sebring this weekend.

Nothing is changing at the venue after this year, except the cars that will be racing over its concrete slabs - LMP1 prototypes will disappear from the US sportscar scene with the merger of Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series to form United SportsCar Racing.

And that's why you will have found me up at Turn 1, down at Turn 17 and elsewhere around the Sebring International Raceway watching the cars during practice this week.

Turn 1 at Sebring is up there on the list of favourite spectating points around the circuits of the world. When you see a quick lap there, it sends tingles down your spine or takes your breath away, depending on your disposition.

The jink out to the right has unfortunately all by disappeared since last year's pitlane extension, but then it's nigh-on flat-out over one bump at the apex and another on the exit. And it's all taking place, not on a state-of-the-art racing surface, but on giant slabs of concrete laid 70 years ago.

Audi is favourite for LMP1's Sebring swansong

Turn 17 is equally breathtaking, though there's no natural spectating point on the outside. There are other great viewing points where you can tell who's up for it in a powerful, high-downforce car.

I like sitting in the little temporary grandstand at Bishop Bend (which is thankfully still there) and wandering over to Turn 6. A hike through the heaving masses in the infield to Collier Curve is worth the effort, too.

Sebring is an anachronism and, according to Grand-Am philosophy, so too is P1 machinery when it comes to sportscar racing in the US. The unsuitability of the category for the domestic scene was made clear right from the get-go on the announcement of the merger last September.

The merger is going to have a positive effect on the racing; a dozen or more DPs and a handful of down-graded P2s battling for outright victories has to be better than the three-car fight that will be de rigueur in the ALMS once Audi departs the fray post-Sebring.

But will a load of DPs and some pegged-back P2s, with their wings quite literally clipped, thrill the fans - and me - in quite the same way as a hairy P1? Of course not.

That's why I'm going to be making the most of my last chance to see a P1 in full-flight through a couple of the great bits of race track left in the world. I only wished I'd relished the last appearances of some other categories of racing car over the years, not to mention some spectacular corners that have been legislated out of existence or just plain buggered about with.

The shortlived 3.5-litre Group C era hasn't had a great write-up in the history books, but it did produce some amazing cars that were spectacular to watch. I have fond memories of the Jaguar XJR-14s piling through Bridge Corner at Silverstone in 1991 when they were flat out all the way from Club.

Piquet leads Mansell in the 1987 British GP on the classic Silverstone layout © LAT

I couldn't tell you if I went out to the back of the circuit at the Sportscar World Championship fixture at Silverstone that year. I think I did, just out of interest. And I'm sure I was disappointed.

That was the year that Silverstone went all twiddly on us, depriving the world of two great corners, ones I never fully appreciated. The old Stowe and Club Corner encapsulated Silverstone in my era (the Woodcote Chicane was long since in place when I first pitched up), but I didn't spend as much time as I should've sitting on the bank watching at those great bends.

As a Brands Hatch man through and through, I was always a bit sniffy about Silverstone. No corner was as good as Paddock Hill Bend to my young mind.

I had an only an inkling that Club was a classic on my trips to the British Grand Prix in the 1980s, and I clearly wasn't alone. Back in 1987, for the classic Nigel Mansell versus Nelson Piquet battle, there were three future AUTOSPORT contributors watching at Club: myself, Marcus Simmons and Mark Hughes, who was accompanied by a very young future winner of the Tourist Trophy in his brother Warren.

That was a coincidence of which I only learnt many years later. The other coincidence was that we were all supporting the same Williams driver. I won't say which one, but suffice to say we were in a minority of four.

I'm lucky that I have a magic moment from the corner at which I witnessed probably half a dozen British GPs, and it came in 1985. I was there at the end of qualifying when Keke Rosberg stormed past, vortices plain to see spiraling off the rear wing of his Williams in the damp air, on the way to his 160mph pole position lap.

That one was both spine-tingling and breathtaking, a memory that I shall take to my grave. I hope that this weekend I'll witness something equally as explosive at Sebring.

I want to implant an image in my brain that will stay there forever, so that in my dotage I can bore anyone who'll listen to my P1-at-T1 Sebring stories.