Well, as I sit in LAX, awaiting my delayed connecting flight back from PHX to SFO (that would be Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, for those not familiar with airport codes!), I figure now is as good a time as any to consolidate my notes, retained on my handy dandy Blackberry throughout the weekend (much easier than trusting my memory!!) and see if my weekend story is entertaining for anyone.
As I do this, I’m till pondering if I should do as my BF suggested and pick up a milk at Micky D’s for my AM coffee, since there are no 24 hour grocers between the airport and home, and this delay means I will likely arrive after they are closed. I HATE having to go to the store before my morning coffee!! (Turns out Micky D’s was out of milk….so I grabbed a single serving at the deli next door…at $3!!! Geez, and I thought NASCAR race track prices were bad!!)
I’ve also been nursing a sore heel this weekend. Nothing entertaining in the story about the heel…no wild nurse parties or San Francisco celebrity bashes to brag about a party injury about. Simply too much walking at work earlier in the week, and I guess twisted the wrong way at one point, and the next morning when I woke up, it was so painful I couldn’t put weight on it. As it loosened up, I realized I likely just pulled something, but ouch!! Therefore, I was still healing when my first race weekend of the year FINALLY arrived, and I didn’t cover as much ground as I have in the past.
Rather than pay for an extra night in a hotel room (in hindsight, it might have been a good idea, rest-wise) I left at 4am Friday morning for SFO to head out to Phoenix for the weekend, having gone to bed at 11pm the night before…and awakened at 1am, unable to return to sleep. I HATE having to get up so early for a flight, I NEVER get enough sleep!! My mind keeps waking me up, worrying about sleeping through the alarm, or did I remember to set it, or did I put my tickets in my purse, and where was my passport, when it should be just wandering through dreamland….
Anyway, the flight was uneventful, and arriving in Phoenix, I picked up my teeny little compact car (it was just me, all I needed was something big enough for my bags and me!!) and headed out to the track. I’m so used to a V6 engine (my truck) that when I got onto the interstate and wound that little V4 up to interstate speed (o-kay, a little over!) the noise of the engine kind disturbed me…but that little compact zipped along once it was up to speed.
Now my adventures begin. As I had purchased my Cup ticket and parking pass within 2 weeks of the race, they would normally be held in Will Call for me to pick up. However, since this time I purchased a parking pass for proximity to the track (I didn’t know when I did that, I was going to be attending with an injured heel; I just have feet that hurt a lot during all the walking in a race weekend anyway, and do what I can to cut down on that), they were going to hold them for me to pick up this morning in the Gate 1 credentials area, so I could pick it up there without hassles with parking.
Arriving at the track, I parked and went into the credentials area…The Holy Land for regular race goers, most of us never get hot passes or other credentials that require entering the credentials area, so we never see the inside of these trailers.
But which trailer was the right one? There were 4 of them…one where crews were going through and getting their weekend credentials, and one for Cup, one for Nationwide, and one for the series that had run the night before.
Still confused, and my deductive reasoning not nudging me and going “This is Nationwide Race day…try THAT trailer) I chose to enter the trailer that someone exited, figuring obviously someone was there, and at least they could direct me to the correct place if that wasn’t it.
I’d found the right place. The inside of the trailer was rather plain and unimpressive, actually. No big cushy chairs and big-screen TVs…just some plastic chairs, and a couple of people behind the counter. A bit of a let-down, that….and I bit my tongue as I watched the woman next to me sign for her Hot Pass….I just asked for my tickets and parking pass, because they weren’t going to give me any more than that, even if I tried to turn on the legendary Busch charm. (I know, I know…I descend from a DIFFERENT branch of Busches, no pun intended, than those 2 Busches!! LOL)
But as I was pretty sure this would be fruitless, I took my tickets, wished them a lovely day in their air conditioned (at least there was that!) tin can on wheels, and headed out to enjoy what access I DID have.
They’ve got some great stuff at the AFLAC hauler this season, but I resisted….thanks to Hertz putting a $200 hold on my credit card for any possible damages I might do to the car I pre-paid for (GRRR!) my spending funds were limited….indeed, I had to put the hotel on my debit card because of that. If I bounce any checks this week, I’m complaining to Hertz!!!
So I resisted buying any AFLAC goodies, and after enquiring if they had heard if Carl was going to do a signing there this weekend (they hadn’t, so it wasn’t looking like he would, at least not at the hauler) I headed into the track, browsing through the displays on my way to the shuttle to pit lane.
Arriving at Pit Lane, I went to see what action was going on in the garage, as Cup practice was on…busy busy….then headed out to pit lane, where Paige and Julie were already hanging out at the exit from the garage.
It wasn’t very long before Norris aka “Old Man” (hey, he calls himself that!! LOL) called me (he doesn’t text!) and I directed him to where we were.
As it was Norris’ first time at Phoenix, we showed him the prime viewing spots. After Carl set the pole speed in Nationwide qualifying, and finished his interviews, he headed our way to chat and sign things, as is his way when he has a few minutes and fans are around….and the official that was standing near us said “Hey, when he gets here, call out ‘Quack quack’” and see what he does!!” What the hey, we were game!!
So as Carl came to our end of the line of fans along the barriers, we called out “Quack Quack!!” over and over until he heard us….and he stopped and did a little 2-step or some kinda dance step, making everyone laugh…my only regret was I wasn’t in a position to snap some video, THAT would have been priceless….we’ll have to watch Facebook, see if it shows up there, if anyone happened to catch it.
Carl of course was his usual charming self, unlike a few other drivers who will remain unnamed, but I’m sure a few can guess, who walked right by and barely acknowledged the fans there, calling their names (Here Shrub, Have a Wreck!), and the fans were, as usual delighted.
As we were when qualifying was over and Carl was on the Pole!! YAY!!
I DO wonder who forgot to bring Jack’s straw hat, though:
Anyone who knows the Cat in the Hat knows the hat changes with the weather…straw in the warm weather, felt in cold……and as you can see, he was OBVIOUSLY wearing the wrong hat for the weather!! (Chuckling at the mental image of Jack Roush, on realizing he’s in 90 degree Phoenix Arizona, and his straw hat was back in North Carolina, doing a head slap and going “DOH!!” LOL )
By this point, my heel was howling, making me grouchy and feel antisocial, so I said my good-byes for the day and started working my way towards my seat, get something to eat, and just so I could take the weight off it.
Cup qualifying didn’t go QUITE as well for Carl, but I’m not going to complain about a top 10 starting spot…neither did he, I’m sure, considering some of the starting spots he’s had in the past.
By the time the Nationwide race started, my head was nodding, as I had been awake about 18 hours with only 2 hours of sleep by that point. As the race wore on and it became apparent that the Shrub would not be denied, so I left after the red flag for the big wreck the Shrub caused with his restart tactics. (I heard later that he vehemently denied slowing down to get those behind him to slow down before he jumps on the restart…of COURSE he denied it, because he’s been penalized for doing that in the past…I cracked up later when he got penalized for JUMPING the start…yes I was listening on the radio all the way to the hotel!)
By THAT point, the only thing I remember seeing in the previous hundred laps were the wrecks, and when the wrecks are the only things that wake you up…well, let’s just say I wasn’t enjoying myself. AND I was petrified that I would fall asleep and drool on the guy next to me. LOL
Plus, I HATE being stuck in post-race traffic when I’m by myself…there’s no-one to talk to.
I was in Arby’s drive-thru, ordering greasy fried goodness when I heard the end of the race. I’m not going to lose any sleep over not seeing Kyle Busch win, yet again.
I don’t really remember my head hitting the pillow that night…that lovely greasy fried goodness and an ice-cold Dos Equis, and I was out like a light…I was just thankful I remembered to set my alarm clock first. LOL
Saturday April 10, 2010: Cup Race Day
Now, let me just preface this by saying, even when it’s a night race, I’m not one who can sit at the hotel and hang around in the morning, when I could be getting to the track for a primo parking spot…even if it means napping for an hour or 2 in car at the track that was progressively getting hotter and hotter, despite the lovely desert breezes.
Hey, this day, I had 9 hours of sleep under my belt…I was ready to go!! (O-kay, so I could have easily slept until noon, but then I would have had to put up with all those annoying people who wait until a NORMAL time to come to the track!!)
So after my nap in the car, and some more browsing of the souvenir haulers (during which, yes, I DID break down and replace my Jeff Burton era #99 earrings with the more current Carl Edwards ones…although I did resist the more expensive gold ones! Plus, you can just NEVER have enough pens…especially AFLAC ones…believe me, NO-ONE at work will steal those from me!! LOL) I went inside the gates and enjoyed a cheeseburger and a Shock Top from the Budweiser tent (it’s a beer, and yummy…Jeff and I were introduced to it when we did the tour of Budweiser in St. Louis last summer, and both took a liking to it, so it’s one of my “special treat” beers) and some people-watching. It never ceases to amaze me the sheer range of people who show up at the race track….Hippies to hillbillies to pit lizards to executives. Too much fun to watch.
When Anne (who needed her sleep more than she needed to avoid traffic to the track! Being someone who loves to sleep, I get that!) arrived, I chatted with her for a while, then headed to pit lane to find Paige, who was already down there hanging with the crews and soaking in the pre-race atmosphere. The sun was strong, as it tends to be in Arizona, and I had been doing my best to stay out of it as much as possible, as even with the breezes keeping the temperatures below 90, it was still a very warm day. Springtime in Phoenix!! LOL But I had my SPF 70 on, and hoped that would be enough this hot day.
Down on pit lane, I found Paige chatting with the 99 guys, obviously done the bulk of their work and now relaxing in some chairs behind the 98 stall next to them….so we chatted with them for a while, then I spotted Norris and flagged him over. Later when the 99 guys headed back to the garage, I presume for lunch and to get ready, and no-one claimed those chairs…
We three Edheads sat there and chatted for a while, just watched what the crews were doing, and the other fans, and just rested…Paige got Bob to smile for the camera again, and introduced me as the gal who designed the infamous “Smile Bob” shirts, and I blushed and grinned…he grinned back…and got her a picture with PK, too…it was nice, just sitting and relaxing, even as the desert sun burned down on us…and we had all drunk all of our water and whatnot by this point, and believe me, the cases of water and vitamin water sitting around behind the pits sure looked tempting, but we resisted….and before we knew it, the officials were moving those without hot passes off the pit lane area.
Since we had never been on pit lane during a race (I was the closest to having the experience, having sat behind the fence at Indianapolis, behind pit lane, so had witnessed pit stops) we hung around as close to the 99 pits as we were allowed for the first part of the race…Randy gave us the thumbs up when he saw us there, but there was no chit-chat during race time. However, you don’t stay in the infield and expect to see much on track action, I know this from my one experience camping in the infield at Daytona February 2001 and experienced it again this day (but it’s the atmosphere that’s so interesting to those of us who don’t work on pit lane), so once we had seen what we could of the first pit stops from back there, we separated and each headed to our own seats…
By this time I had been so baked in the sun for about 3 hours, I no longer had to pee (my body, in a fit of self-preservation, had reabsorbed that fluid LOL) and the beer I bought at the concession stand (after draining a bottle of water) was THE BEST TASTING BEER I HAVE EVER HAD!! There’s nothing better than a cold beer on a hot day. (I also would later discover that even SPF 70 sunscreen doesn’t always fully protect a nose on a sweaty Canadian face unless you re-apply…which I did not. Fortunately, that was my only crispy body part after the weekend. LOL)
When I stopped to grab a bite to eat before heading up into the stands, I was absolutely flabbergasted to see a man carrying a baby who couldn’t be much more than a month or 2 old, with headphones on the baby’s head to protect the ears (at least he was smart enough to do that). Who in their right mind (other than the drivers, who have those lovely rolling hotels on wheels in the infield to keep them safe in) brings a child who has NO IDEA what is going on, because he/she is too young, to the track? Heck, even the buddy who turned me into the NASCAR fanatic I am today waited until his son was 8 or 10 years old to take him to his first race. I just shook my head. If you are going to spend the money for race tickets and all the other costs of a race weekend, spring for a babysitter!! Believe me, your baby will be a whole lot more comfortable at home than at a race. JMO, of course.
This was such a long race that by the time I got up to my seat, it still was not the half-way point, so I settled in for a good bit of race watching still to come, and on THIS night, I had no problem staying awake!. Well, other than during the usual lull in the middle when the drivers seem to settle in and just ride….but THAT had nothing to do with lack of sleep, and my Blackberry kept me occupied.
Carl had a good run on this day, as he has in many recent days, and I see such an improvement, although it’s been so gradual that many Edheads are still complaining (hey, I wanna see the backflip, too!!) but it IS an improvement. Many races last season, it seemed that the car would just fall off, become so uncompetitive, Carl would get mired back in the pack, and it seemed that nothing Bob and crew threw at the car helped…now he’s getting top 10 finishes again. I think it’s just a matter of time before the 99 is back in victory lane, and with Carl’s foot all healed, we’ll see a heckuva backflip!
And it’s always fun seeing a driver who hasn’t won in a while make it to victory lane….rather than the ususal suspects lately (18, 48). Congratulations to Ryan Newman, the 39 team and team owner Tony Stewart…it’s about time!!
So back to LAX…..we FINALLY got on our flight after a 4 hour delay, so I got home that night, so all is well in the NASCAR world for me. Back to the real world with it’s real fun and problems.
