Google puts Laguna Seca on Street View for American Le Mans

Google's Street View camera system is famous, even infamous, for the interesting and sometimes wacky things it catches as it tours the country, taking roadside footage. But soon the view will include the on-track perspective of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca as the American Le Mans Series racers prepared for the final race of the 2008 season.

The special feature had been planned to go live tomorrow, March 26, but it has since been delayed to an unspecified date. Until it does go live, however, the photo above offers a taste of what's currently available if you dig around the site on Google Maps.

Google's Street View system works by sending a van with a spherical camera to capture the entire surroundings of many of the streets of the bigger cities in the U.S., or in this case, of the track and its environment, just like it does on the street. It even caught some interesting spectator activity as the cars performed their warmup laps.

How, you might ask, does this pertain to either Street View's mission or ALMS racing? Scott Atherton, president and CEO of the series has the answer: “In racing, the goal is to be first. The American Le Mans Series is the first race to be filmed for Street View and this project with Google once again demonstrates how we align with leaders in innovative technology.”