The paddocks at Sebring are a demonstration of US egalitarian motorsport
Liberté, égalité, fraternité may have been the motto of revolutionary France, but with Lady Liberty still standing astride the entrance to the city of New York today (a present from the self-same French in the 1800s) it remains a tenent that Americans live by into the 21st century.
How is this intrinsic set of beliefs reflected in motorsport? Everywhere you look. Arrive at any American race track and the idea of "access all areas" will be completely redefined. Any pit garages that the circuit may have tend to stand empty more often than not, teams instead base themselves in the paddock area, under the kind of awning you might expect to see used by a support race for the BTCC.
Everyone inside the circuit is equal. At the Sebring Classic 12 Hour the paddocks are made of the same broken concrete slabs that make this airfield circuit so iconic. So each team must find whatever way of securing themselves for the weekend that they can. Those awnings need holding down, so a racing car becomes a makeshift counterweight, holding the roof that protects it from the baking Floridian sun.
While Ferraris and Porsches sit awaiting their turn on the track, the mode of transport for all is the humble golf cart. It's nigh on impossible to stand out in a golf cart. Sure you can turn up with a slightly bigger one, or one that goes a little bit faster, but at the end of the day you are all on golf carts and it fosters the kind of brotherhood of which Lady Liberty would surely approve.
It's the same in the pits or in the spectator areas. You won't find a lane filled with the classic "prat perches" that litter an F1 track here. You also won't find the giant grandstands that can set one part of the crowd away from the rest. Instead people use their own vehicles to gain that extra bit of height, and if you can't do that then you'll just have to mix it with everyone else.
It's one of the reasons oval racing is so popular over here. It doesn't matter where you are in the grandstand at an oval, you can see pretty much the entire track. In fact if anything those in hospitality areas in the infield actually have less of a view than the general public.
The American racetrack, therefore, is a microcosm for the American ideal. A dream that whether or not it has succeeded remains as strong in the minds of all who wear the stars and stripes as it ever has. Long may the American racetrack keep its unique identity, it represents the very soul of the US.
Photography by Ben Miles