LOL The title is very self-explanatory, and will, as with my past blogs, become very clear as you read along.
Nannette and I put our heads together when she recently showed back up on the Left coast, where I have been residing for the past few years, and we agreed that as NASCAR fans, we just HAD to get to one more race weekend this season…my last one had been Infineon in June…for Cup that is…Gateway is it’s own entity, a weekend of fun with friends, and the Truck race at Iowa Speedway with my boyfriend in September…well, sorry to the Truck fans, but that just didn’t count...if I don’t see Carl Edwards or Mark Martin with my own eyes in a race weekend, then it’s not a real race weekend for me; it’s just a race. But after the number of races I had attended in previous years, this year was a bit of a drought for me, as I wrestled with the reality that going to races is costly.
Nan’s last race weekend had been Phoenix in the spring, so she was even more in withdrawal than I was.
As luck would have it, we compared schedules, and we both had the Phoenix race weekend in November off!!
Added bonus, one of those flight coupons I received for giving up my seat on the plane when returning from Phoenix last spring made my flight basically free, so things were falling into place.
Include an evening spent cruising the ‘net that took us from $129/night for the hotel alone to a deal through Cheaptickets.com (yup, a shout out to them, they’ve got some GREAT deals!!) for less than that for both a rental car and a hotel, albeit a 1 star hotel. Whatever, as long as it’s clean, and has a horizontal space for me to sleep on, I’m happy…that’s all I need for a race weekend.
Sadly, the first hint we had that just perhaps this hotel MIGHT be slightly less comfortable than we would like would be the Topless bar right next door, complete with neon outlines of the female form and martini glasses…shades of Las Vegas!! Add in the industrial yard across the street, and we pretty much decided we weren’t leaving the hotel room after dark!! LOL
Checking in, we lugged our (o-kay, fatter than necessary…neither of us are really light packers!!) luggage up to the second floor room we were assigned (no elevator in this one-star establishment, of course.). Opening the door to our room, we were hit with a wave of Pine Sol scent. That actually was reassuring…not much can survive a good dousing of Pine Sol, I have found.
And the dead roach in the corner seemed to support this…I wonder if it suffocated on the fumes. Considering a roach could probably survive a nuclear holocaust, I doubt it, but I like to think that’s what happened.
Whatever, there were no signs of any other bugs, so we shuddered, and moved on….
Only to have the bathroom door’s door knob fall off when touched…..
And the toilet required the handle be held down the entire time to flush whatever is in it…
The final straw was when I looked up and saw that, despite what looked like a spotless bathtub and shower (not a spot of mold or mildew or other to be seen…thanks PineSol!!) there was no shower head. Just the pipe protruding from the wall, headless.
Sorry, 3 strikes…I made a quick call to the office and requested another room, listing everything that was wrong EXCEPT the dead roach. (THAT I hoped they’d see that themselves!)
Downstairs we went, in our PJs, because after working all night and not sleeping much before hopping on our flight Thursday afternoon, we were beat, and had immediately jumped into our comfy clothes upon entering the room….so PJ-clad, we lugged the luggage into another Pine Sol scented, but dead-roach-free, functioning-door-knob, toilet-and-shower-head-in-place-room…oh the shower head sprayed all over the place, but 90% of the water hit the person in the shower, so we were happy.
After a feed of pizza, we were out before our heads even hit our pillows, dead asleep, and awakened refreshed and ready to go…at 5 am the next morning. I’m blaming it on jet lag. Yeah, that 1 hour time difference between Arizona and California since we fell back totally messed up my sleeping….yeah, that’s what happened. LOL
Whatever, we had more than 8 hours of sleep under our belts, so after a leisurely catching up on world events (once I realized the reason my laptop wouldn’t connect to the wireless internet wasn’t because the hotel misrepresented that amenity in their advertisement, but that I had not yet turned on my laptop’s wireless switch) and showering off the travel detritus, we changed into our pit-lane ready attire, we headed out, arriving at the track by 9am…..
Now Phoenix International Raceway, as I have said before, has the best deal for pit passes of almost any NASCAR track I’ve been to…$50 for all 3 days on pit lane (in addition to the cost of race tickets, but with $7 ones for Friday, the Truck race day, and $15 ones for Saturday, Nationwide race day, from what I’ve heard from fans attending races at other tracks, they’re in the forefront of tracks cutting ticket prices to fill seats, and other tracks need to pay attention!!), and they let you stay down there during practice and qualifying, seeing all sorts of drivers and crew chiefs and owners and other NASCAR personalities (and even non-Nascar ones….Rumor has it Arsineo Hall was there!! I don’t know, I never saw him, but the rumor was in the wind….) so we looked forward to a day full of sightings and sun and fun on pit lane, and we weren’t disappointed.
Numerous Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer and Jack Roush sightings were had between the Nationwide and Cup garages as those drivers went back and forth (Kyle Busch, aka “the Shrub”, seemed to find ANOTHER way between the 2 garages, because we never once saw him.)…Paige reported that she saw Bob Osborne later in the day, and even got proof that he’s got teeth…yes, Bob smiled!!
Down towards turn one, where the Cup cars come off the track and pull back into the garage, there’s a spot behind pit lane where intrepid fans who aren’t scared that the cars will spin out and hit them as they come around the corner off pit lane to go into the garage that is an awesome vantage point to stand and snap pics of the cars. You SO know I was there! LOL
Add to that excitement, the trucks were lining up in that area to go through inspection for the truck race later that day, their teams pushing them, unpowered, around the corner from where they’d been working on them on pit lane, in the pit stalls, and turning them to go through inspection. So busy. It was GREAT!!!
I wondered, if a team member accidentally runs a NASCAR official over with his unpowered truck, how bad is that for his/her NASCAR career?? LOL Because they came darned close a couple of times, the official directing them skittering out of the way at the last second when they went too far. LOL
Well, those who have been around a while have heard the explanation for those flames…that sometimes excess fuel runs down into the exhaust pipes, where it just burns off, causing those flames, and they usually just go out on their own.
As one Truck team positioned their truck to the left of me to go through that truck inspection line, I lifted my camera again to snap a photo of the car coming around the corner to the right….got the pic, and as I was lowering my hands to scan pit lane for another car leaving the track and heading our way, suddenly, as the car went by about 10-15 feet away from me….
Well, the best way to describe it is, have you ever run the gas a little too long on your gas BBQ with the top down, before opening it and lighting it? Remember that fireball that cost many people their eyebrows and bangs over the years before they learned not to do that???
Yup. Big fireball as the car went by and the driver hit the gas to enter the garage, obviously having some overflow in the exhaust pipe…. It was toasty warm for a fraction of a second!!
The truck team to the left, waiting in line, witnessed this, as well as the other fans hanging out to my left looked at me, and when they saw, after a shocked moment, that I was o-kay, they gave me a thumbs up and looks like “You o-kay??” to which I responded by running my fingers over my brows, checking, then returning their grins and thumbs up…..my only regret was that I didn’t have video going at that very moment…that was AWESOME!!! (Since I still have my chemically enhanced blonde mane…although I wouldn’t want to experience it again) LOL
One of the most commonly asked questions of drivers that I have heard is what do they do during a race if they have to, errr, relieve themselves. Well, I discovered from one of the vantage points over the Cup garage, just exactly what they have to do if they have to do so while in the garage: Stand in line!!
Yup, that would be Matt Kenseth, standing in line with everyone else, to use the facilities, AND Marcos Ambrose holding the door for Kurt Busch as they emerge...this restroom became especially busy just before Cup practice started. I often wondered if any of them just popped into the women's restroom beside it, because due to the lesser number of women in the garage, that was lineless...but none did, while I was watching. Hey, it's one of the spots at PIR that you can be assured that many many drivers and other team members will be seen, sooner or later, during a long day of practices. LOL
Around 3 or 4 pm, Nannette and I both realized our day of little sleep the day before had caught up to us, despite a good night’s sleep the night before, so we headed back to the hotel and just vegged out. After a good feed at Johnson’s Big Apple, good down-home cooking, we were once again out like a light before ConAir was finished.
Saturday once again promised to be perfect race-going weather…..Sunny, 70s….oh, sure, there was the chance of showers early on, but that would clear up.
After a little shopping on souvenir row, we headed down to pit lane. This is the day that is the most fun to be down there…the prime spot by the exit from the Cup garage to pit lane? Fans line up on one side, and as the NW cars qualify and are impounded on the OTHER side of that entrance, and the drivers will often walk over and sign autographs on their way back to the garage. Carl especially is very good at doing this, stopping not only at the barriers, but along the fence into the garage to sign anything he can. Often with his PR rep, Randy, trailing behind, frequently checking his watch. LOL
Later, while having lunch, we spotted Brendan Gaughan getting cash out of the ATM behind pit lane at the concession stand, and my first thought was “What, Brendan, they don’t feed you on that team, you have to buy your own lunch??” LOL My second thought was “He’s in his driver’s suit…where’s he putting the cash???” LMAO
He obviously had time to burn before the next Nationwide practice, so he stood around and signed autographs and posed for pictures….but he was the least of our sightings that day.
We chatted with the military pilot who would be piloting one of the helicopters in the flyover later for the race, flying by at 1000 feet altitude….considering the stands must go up 500 feet, they come pretty close to the top of the stands.
We also spent a little time in the ladies room, the only covered building open to the public, as it rained in the desert!! Enough to cancel one Cup practice, and probably because, for the first time in years, I forgot to bring my rain poncho….heck, I didn’t even have a hat!!! I’m a superstitious type….every race I have carried that rain poncho to, just in case, in the last 2-3 years, it has NOT rained. This was my first time caught in the rain since getting doused in Dover after the Cup race a few years back!!
Of course, it wasn’t a “gully washer” or anything like that….just enough to dampen the dust (and the hair)….so before long, we were back out, enjoying the sunshine again.
There are so many great angles to see things that we just wandered around, snapping photos, until it was time to head up into the stands to watch the Nationwide race.
I was ecstatic to find that our seats were directly across from the 60 pit stall (Lucky #13) on pit lane…however, the positioning of some cables made the view frustrating…so I moved down a ways later for a more unobstructed view of a pit stop. Otherwise these were great seats, for $15. PIR rocks when it comes to deals on tickets.
The cherry on top of the day was watching Carl win…It’s been so long since I saw Carl win a race, live, the last being the previous year, that it was just a relief. I know he’s still capable of winning, despite the critics and fans that seem to think that his current Cup slump means he’s all washed up.
Unfortunately, that slump continued on Sunday, but we had fun anyway, scoring a garage tour where we were able to chat up Randy, Carl’s PR rep, and wish Carl a good race in person, and after the initial disappointment when his race ended up NOT being that good (like the majority of the 2009 season) we still had lots of fun.
All in all, a great weekend in the desert, watching and hoping, and visiting good friends…even though we missed a couple of them this visit around.
And in regards to the season Carl and the 99 team had, I look at it this way…the LAST time Carl had a spectacular Cup season with multiple wins and was battling for a championship (2005), ultimately tying his teammate Greg Biffle for second place (the stats say 3rd place, because Greg won more races, but in points it was a tie), the next year he went winless and missed the Chase….then he rebounded with another multiple-win season, followed by 2008’s spectacular season. The same thing occurred in 2009. 2008, 9 wins, contender for the championship, bridesmaid again. I can handle an off-season where he still makes the Chase, as long as he and his team continue to rebound that way.
On to 2010, which will bring new adventures and challenges for Carl Edwards (including the BIG adventure with his wife Kate…parenthood, to commence sometime around Speedweeks!) that I’m sure he will excel at, and for myself. We’ll just have to see, but that parenthood thing?? Nope…I’ll stick to Aunthood…..works for me!!
And as my personal "I Survived the Big 4-0...Is That All You've Got??" tour comes to an end in less than a week, I'm going to make a birthday wish.
That all my friends and fellow Nascar fans have a wonderful New Year in 2010, and that Carl and Kate have a blessed and uneventful delivery of their baby Girl, BEFORE Speedweeks (as I am pretty sure will be scheduled....)....maybe on Feb. 9?? (Yup, that's the day I picked in the Edhead's fun little guessing game on the Roush boards.) Oh, and that I get to attend some more races this season.
Have a Happy New Year!!
...very telling, IMO...now that he's a family man, I really don't think we'll see Jeff Gordon running full-time too many years longer...he's got more money than he'll ever spend (if he's smart), a gorgeous wife with a career of her own, and a beautiful daughter, and can safely retire and enjoy family life now. I really think the generation of drivers who will drive as long as they are competitive, as in Mark Martin, is almost gone, and this new generation won't run that long...they make more money, they don't HAVE to. At least, MOST of them won't. I wonder about Carl Edwards, though...the way he and a few others still race whatever they can get into, they MIGHT end up sticking around longer....but those like Jeff who JUST run the Cup series, and do it to win...I suspect those will be the ones who retire and move on to other things long before they are no longer competitive. Just my thoughts on the matter.
And one couple who so love Smoke, this year when they returned to the track, their paint jobs changed to reflect Tony's new sponsor colors:
As Cup qualifying progressed, I said good bye to Paige and Julie and the others down there, and headed out to join up with the ONMC group gathering for Driver Intros. As soon as qualifying was over, we would be moved down onto the track to make a corridor for the drivers to go through once they got off the stage.
