Warning, the following story relates to my experience at a NASCAR event. Let he who is without a little WT-ness cast the first stone.
Note: If you actually make it to the end of this post there are videos to document the experience.
A friend of mine works at a job that hands out race tickets to clients. She had extra tickets to Friday (Truck Race) and Saturday (Nationwide Race) and she knows how big of a racing fan I am (note: she also gave me tickets to the IndyCar race in June - as mentioned in this post). Needless to say, she's the best! So, a friend and I went to the Truck Race on Friday and had a great time. Unfortunately, my least-favorite driver won. But we still had a great time. My friend had never been before and was very intrigued by the entire event. He was in shock at how big the track was. I took another friend with me on Saturday and we also had a great time. We even got to see Carl do his famous victory-back-flip. Unfortunately, our racing scanner was not working or 3/4 of the race due to a "system outage". That takes away a lot of the fun because its harder to follow when you can't listen to a radio broadcast. I worked the system and got a couple of vouchers for free scanners next time. So, all is well.
Next up, Sunday. The big one. I actually had to buy tickets to this race for Randy and I. FYI, if you ever go to one of these events you want to be as high up as possible so you can see the entire track. If you're on the first row you can only see the front stretch and you are constantly being hit with small debris from the track (not to mention how much louder it is when you're 5 feet away).
You may remember about my post back in April, but if not, I'll catch you up. Long story short, I won a two VIP passes to attend the "public" Sprint Cup drivers meeting before the April TMS race. Well, it rained that weekend and because of some weird planning on their part, they had to cancel the "public" meeting and gave everyone rain-checks on the passes. A couple of weeks ago I received our new passes for the November TMS race. Luckily, the radar looked promising and our chances for a beautiful weekend were high.
We showed up to the track about an hour before the meeting and jumped thorough the two-hundred hoops it took to reach the infield (via a pedestrian tunnel under the track). We show up 30 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to take place. They had just opened the doors and we were able to sit on the second row. When all the fans showed up, there was probably 60 people total. Of course, as soon as we sit down we realize how big of a mistake it was to forget Randy's nice camera at home. Also, we should have thought ahead and borrowed someones video camera. Instead, we were limited to the power (and the battery life) of our iPhones (I had video, Randy didn't). Lets just say the camera was rolling and the little iPhone was put to the ultimate test.
Soon after we settle in, the drivers start trickling in. Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin. Did I mention that EVERY driver and crew chief was REQUIRED to attend? Meanwhile, here we are between 3 and 30 feet away from all of them. If you're not a NASCAR fan you can't comprehend how surreal it was. Mixed in with the drivers were team owners (Richard Childress, Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, etc.), NASCAR officials (Mike Helton, Robin Pemberton, etc.), and individuals involved with the pre-race ceremonies and what-not (Dick Vitale, Lance Armstrong, Big Black, C.J. Wilson, Tommy Hunter, etc.). The best part about the meeting was hearing Kyle Busch ask a question about the rules of a restart because he was upset with the way the Nationwide race finished the night before (he thought Carl Edwards jumped the start). Kyle, "Excuse my ignorance, but can you explain the difference between the single starting line and the double starting line?" I wasn't the only one snickering.After the meeting we stood outside and watched as the aforementioned attenders left the meeting. However, not all those in attendance left because after the meeting they had a "Motor Racing Church" service. Randy and I stuck around and got to experience a little praise and worship and a sermon along with the drivers who stuck around. It was pretty awesome.
When everyone had finally disappeared to the garages to prepare for the race, Randy and I started wandering around the infield just trying to take everything in before we made it back to the grandstands with the common-folk. We saw the entrance to pit-road and thought, "Why not try?" We meandered over to scope it out. Sure enough, our VIP passes gave us access to the pits!
We proceeded to walk up and down pit-road (both behind-the-wall with the crews and over-the-wall with the cars). It was here where I got some of the amazing up-close-and-personal video as we stood next to the 24 (5 feet from Jeff Gordon) during the national anthem and fly-over. We were even on TV behind Jeff's car during driver introductions! Through the course of our wandering, we came across Big Black (of MTV's Rob and Big) and Tommy Hunter!
We kept expecting them to kick us out but they NEVER did!! We could have watched the entire race from pit-road. We stayed for about 20 laps and got to be up-close for a pit-stop (again, all of this is documented on the videos). Finally we went up to our seats because we really wanted to sit down and eat some food (oh yeah, and my iPhone battery was at 4%).
We eventually made our way up to the stands via a pedestrian tunnel under the race track. I scoped out a section from the infield that didn't look very full and we made our way up there (not our seats which were much lower). They were great seats. I won't bore you with the on-track festivities. All you need to know is that my driver, Jeff Gordon, was wrecked under caution (very bizarre) by another driver, Jeff Burton. Gordon walked the 50-yards down the track to Burton's car and gave him a piece of his mind (watch the video here...its worth it). As excited as I was to see him take-up for himself, I was devestated because he was done for the day. The race finished at dusk with Denny Hamlin crossing the line first. The overall race was one of the best of the season and it was awesome to be there. Now, I leave you with the aforementioned video footage. I recommend watching both...but that's just me :)
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