Is Sprint Responsible???

Shame shame, NASCAR and Sprint!! Didn't your Momma ever tell you not to tick off a nurse...she's the one who sticks things in you!!

Let me preface by saying I am a happy AT&T customer. I've been with AT&T through Cingular and back, from my first bag phone back in the 90s (most kids nowadays wouldn't know what those looked like!) when I moved to the States from Canada, to my current Blackberry Torch.

Nextel, Sprint, it didn't matter which cell phone giant sponsored the series I call my favorite sport, I was and am happy with my AT&T service. I cheered like a crazy person when Jeff Burton drove that orange 31 car out on pit lane at Richmond a few years back, AT&T logo blazing beautifully on the hood of the car. It had been a long battle for AT&T to win the right to finish out the contract with Richard Childress Racing that Cingular had started, but they did. At that time, that was like David landing a blow on Goliath. YAY for the (at that time) little guy!!

Those of you who have read my race weekend stories over the years know that I've attended a lot of races. And I've done so with my AT&T cell phone faithfully at my side, first with a Hawaii number, then a North Carolina number, followed by the Massachusetts number that has worked for me for a long time.

So I had no reason to be concerned by changing over to an AT&T Tennessee cell phone number when we chose to move to Tennessee this past year. In July, we both got new Tennessee numbers.

I had no worries about a cell phone in the same state as the race track working at the track.

Until I got to Bristol Motor Speedway last Saturday and was unable to upload a photo of the track to Facebook to let my friends know I'd made it.

Now I'm not one of those people with her Blackberry welded to her hand, constantly texting or Facebooking or Tweeting, freaking out because she couldn't get her phone to access the 'net...nope, at the race it is purely for communicating, and the occasional photo upload to Facebook for my friends who are not so lucky as to be attending the race. Most of the time, it's in my hip pocket, set on vibrate, in case a friend calls or texts.

And being a seasoned race goer, I am quite used to sluggish service at the track. Heck, 100 000 + people in close proximity to each other often simultaneously using their cell phones? Yeah, things are bound to be a bit slow...it's why I generally stick to texting at the track to get together with friends, etc.

Not this weekend. Nope. Something was different.

For both my boyfriend and I, from the moment we arrived at the track, our AT&T phones showed 5 bars, full service available...and we weren't able to get so much as a text out.

Now, the black helicopters in this area of race attendance have long hovered in the background of my subconscious, ever since Sprint took over primary sponsorship of NASCAR's premier series. Got a little louder as we watched Sprint push first Alltel, then finally AT&T out of the series, so as to be the exclusive cell phone provider for NASCAR.

And I resisted going to Sprint as a service provider, because I had no problem with AT&T's service; it's always been comparable to the other major providers in price and service. And I've lived on both coasts and in Hawaii with it and never had a problem.

But I attend a NASCAR race in the mountains of east Tennessee, 2 hours from my home base and the zip code my phone is based out of, a race I had attended several months previously and had no problems with my old AT&T cell number, other than the standard slowness....and I can't text my friends to arrange to meet up with them. Neither can my boyfriend, on the same plan. What gives???

AT&T is not perfect, but listening to my friends who have cell phone provider-hopped over the years, none of them really are....but if this is a problem with the service in East Tennessee, then I AM going to have a problem with them. Because I AM a regular NASCAR Sprint Cup race-goer, and intend to continue in this practice.

And if that problem is isolated to Bristol Motor Speedway, like it sure seemed when suddenly our phones both came to life with a flood of texts and voice mails when we left after the race and got a few miles away from the track, then BMS has a problem.

If it's a problem isolated to NASCAR Sprint Cup race weekends, then someone needs to deflate Sprint's ego, because they are NOT the be-all and end all of cell phone providers...if those black helicopters aren't just a figment of my imagination and Sprint is somehow directly responsible for blocking AT&T signals at that track, and possibly others, then shame on Sprint. And it should not be allowed.

Because a phone that works all across the country, on islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and in Canada without problem should NEVER just not work when there's no natural disaster going on. 5 bars means full service. Something is fishy.

Don't mess with me...I just might give you an enema. ;)

How much traffic should NASCAR fans have to endure

I've been lucky enough to attend many NASCAR races and I have put up with a lot when it comes to traffic. Nothing surprises me anymore. I routinely leave hours before most would just to avoid the traffic inbound to the track, and I don't expect to get rolling within an hour of the end of a race. If I'm there alone, and driving, and it becomes apparent Kyle Busch is about to win, and Carl Edwards is not nipping at his heels, I even leave the race before it's over to get a head start on traffic. Nothing personal, just don't like seeing the Shrub win over and over again enough to want to brave post-race traffic on my own.

Recently I have even taken advantage of a wonderful shuttle service from the Knoxville area up to Bristol Motor Speedway, courtesy of Rocky Top Tours....$30 round trip each day, and Bristol holds traffic one hour after the race to let all of the shuttles out; if you aren't on your shuttle within an hour of race end, you have either missed your shuttle home, or have a whole bunch of really annoyed co-riders (not to mention the shuttle driver) who are delayed in the race traffic because they missed that window when the shuttles are allowed to leave while the traffic is held for them. I live in fear of being this person. LOL

I have sat, engine off, unmoving, alone, for 2 hours in a parking lot at Dover Raceway where some unthinking soul didn't realize that several thousand cars trying to funnel out one parking lot exit all at once, rather than being split up through the residential neighborhoods around the track (heaven help the neighbors suffering some traffic, that comes with living next to a track, IMO!) would cause a serious back-up (or they just did not care), and I have tailgated after the race at Pocono to avoid the traffic. I've also been pleasantly surprised by tracks like Bristol, Charlotte and Richmond, as well as Phoenix, who seem to have the traffic patterns that other tracks need to aspire to.

And I am SO thankful that events conspired to keep me from attending the inaugural Cup race at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky.

I have NEVER left hours early for a race and MISSED it because of traffic, as reportedly many fans did, this past Saturday. That, to me, is the worst way of taking advantage of fans, and is inexcusable.

Here is one of my fellow loyal NASCAR-fan friend's first-person view of what it was like.

"Kentucky Report...

We sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 2.5 miles (from our campground 2.5 miles from the track)... trying to get INTO the track. It took us 3.5 hours plus another 15 mins to park infield and walk onto the track. We arrived for the race at Lap 199 [out of 267 laps total]. We only got in AT ALL because we went to TWO track entrances.

Understand... this was already NINE-THIRTY at NIGHT... and the race was almost over! We had been sitting still and creeping forward for HOURS... just trying to get to the track. The first one, the State Troopers waved us angrily by. Second entrance, first trooper was mean and said Go! We asked a second one... showed him our parking pass and he started talking to us. He started out kinda nice, explaining that no one understood the place was full. Then he got irritated and got an edge to his voice. I let him know we appreciated the Troopers' efforts and thanked him profusely for hanging in there, considering what they were dealing with. I kept telling him I couldn’t imagine how tough his job was with that mess. TRUE! He got nice again. He said, "I'm gonna let you in..." and he started to move the cones and tape. The other trooper got mad and tried to stop him, but he ignored him. We almost got out to kiss his feet. Ha.

I can understand if we drove up to that entrance and were bad-mouthing them... giving them a hard time. We were very kind and understanding to them. We had reserved parking infield. We showed him our pass on the window. The point is... all but one of the troopers were absolutely RUDE and MEAN and THREATENING. I was amazed. The problem was the general parking... not the infield. When the nice trooper let us in, we drove under the tunnel and there were about 50 open parking places, just in our lot. And they were refusing everyone entrance.

All I can say is that it was VERY sad in KY. We drove a long way to get there, and missed 200 laps because of the traffic. A young man we had hung out with the night before left the track a few hours before the race to get generator gas for their camper. They were camping INFIELD, while we were camping 2.5 miles from the track. HE CAME RIGHT BACK AND THE TROOPERS WOULD NOT LET HIM IN. He had the parking pass that said he was in TOW VEHICLE for the INFIELD CAMPER... and they told him NO. This was hours before race time. He had waited impatiently for a whole year for this race, and that is all he talked about the night before. He sat on the side of the road outside of the track until 1:30 AM! He never got to see a minute of the race. His whole family was inside and refused to use their tickets to go in without him. His Mom was really worried, as they had no idea why he didn't return.

There were cars streaming BACK toward us AWAY from the track about an hour before we made it all the way up there. Larry would roll down the window and ask, and they said they were turned away from the track and told there was no parking available. They were told it was at least 10 miles to the nearest places to park. People were stopping on the side of the road, asking drivers of other cars to take photos of them holding their tickets... then they would get on the interstate and go home. Can you imagine???

Sad!

-Angie S. H. Little"

It blows me away that NASCAR did not demand from SMI (the parent company of Kentucky Speedway) proof of the ability to do more than just seat more than 40 000 more fans in the stands, but get them into the track in the first place. Bruton Smith (chairman of SMI) can try all he wants to blame it on the 2-lane I-71 that feeds the Sparta, KY area track, but the fact is, as the Governor pointed out on his Sirius radio interview the Monday following this unfortunate incident, I-71 could be 6 lanes wide, but there would still be a huge traffic mess at the 2 exits expected to funnel all of those people into the track. At the track itself, they estimated it would require the parking of 3000 vehicles/hr AND a lot more parking spaces than the track already has. Which to me should have precluded them getting a race date UNTIL THEY GOT MORE PARKING AND A PLAN FOR A BETTER TRAFFIC PATTERN IN PLACE.

The impression I get is that NASCAR handed SMI this race date (after years of legal wrangling and saying "NO!"), and SMI put the stands in, and said "well, there are going to be some parking problems this year, but that means we can put pressure on the area municipalities to help build more access to the track, by creating a mess this first race weekend." I mean, this mess will be talked about for a long time, and many fans will NOT return, but by creating a mess, they can now pressure municipalities around the track, not to mention the state of Kentucky, to help pay for the improvements, rather than pay for it all themselves.

It may only be my impression, and I may be way off, but nothing related to the ability of NASCAR (hey, I love NASCAR, but that does not mean I'm naive about what they are generally about!) and it's affiliates to make much $$$ off us poor fans surprises me any more. And this would not surprise me, either, if my impression is correct.

My friend said it best. Sad.