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.

A Dark and Stormy Night in Thunder Valley

Bristol Night race, 2010: Ponchos, (Driver) Pouting, and the Perfect National Anthem

Well, as many of you know, I have finally settled down (for the time being) in Knoxville, Tennessee, giving up my (not so) glamorous life as a travel nurse. I just decided 10 years was enough, and although I may travel again someday, I was soundly sick and tired of the moving involved.

Why Knoxville, you say? Well, aside from it being within a day’s drive of my family in Southern Ontario, and also my boyfriend in Iowa, I have several friends in the Deep South it will be nice to be close to.

Okay, the proximity to Bristol, Kentucky, Nashville, Charlotte, Martinsville, Richmond, Darlington, Atlanta, Talladega MAY have weighed in on my decision just a little bit.

So after my long summer vacation (during which I never DID get around to telling y’all my Infineon race day story! Sorry about that, but really, nothing very exciting happened. Good race, no sightings. Gateway was another story, but I just never got around to it, with all the vacation travel) and settling into my new home, I found I could afford a day in Bristol for the Cup race. 2 hours away??? You KNOW if it was at all possible, I was going to be there, come Hell or High Water (and believe me, the weather made the latter a distinct possibility!!).

The main problem I foresaw? NIGHT RACE. Probably over around Midnight. That 2 + hour drive back in race traffic (which means likely more like 4 hours) meant I’d be fighting sleepiness in race traffic alone. I’ve done this in the past…it’s just not fun. You end up doing a lot of talking to yourself to stay awake, and road rage may surface.

Jackpot!! I love Google!! I started my search of companies transporting fans up to the track from Knoxville. I mean, I have heard of many who stay in Knoxville and drive up, it’s one of the closest major cities near Bristol, and I had seen travel packages that offer this, so surely there would be a bus for locals going up.

It took me a couple of days playing with the wording of my search, (between shifts in the Baby Factory). This technique, changing the wording to fine-tune my search, is my specialty for finding deals on-line, and it didn’t fail me this time, either: Rocky Top Tours, leaving out of Pigeon Forge (near Dollywood) and stopping to pick more up in Sevierville (Dolly’s home town) before heading to the track, $30 round-trip. If I drove, gas alone would cost more than that!!

So I met up with a couple of dozen other sodden race fans (Knoxville’s weather was NOT promising!!) at the Sevierville Welcome Center, on a wet, wet, wet Saturday morning. No matter….I had packed in my trusty bottomless shoulder bag, with my scanner, camera, cushion and other necessary stuff (even sunscreen…the eternal optimist, that’s me!), my lucky rain slicker, a freebie about 5 years ago from RIR. Why is it lucky? Whenever I carry it with me to a race, it doesn’t rain!! That meant we’d leave the rain behind in Knoxville….

Sure. We DID drive out of the rain and arrive in an overcast, but dry, Bristol, TN, around 2pm. So far so good.

Stepping off the bus, it immediately started to spit. Uh oh!

Not to be deterred, as it got heavier and heavier (to the tune of the hawkers selling programs in plastic sleeves “Guaranteed to stay dry!” and t-shirts “Get your dry t-shirt!” LOL), I plunked my trusty Canada bucket hat on my head to keep my hair as dry as possible, and opened my bottomless bag to dig out the poncho, as it was going to be needed.

Only problem?? No poncho. Brain fart! When I first packed the bag for the track, I had thought about carrying my little cooler with some cold drinks, thinking it would likely be hot, and changed my mind about the cooler when I saw the forecast…and packed the slicker in the side pocket of that cooler. BLAME THE RAIN ON ME!!!

Best laid plans.

By the time I retraced my steps to the bus and got my umbrella (which I knew I’d have to forfeit at the gate…no umbrellas allowed into the stands…but it was old and starting to fall apart, so no biggie, and the rain WAS getting heavier and heavier) I was pretty wet, but as I returned to the track, I soon realized even THAT wasn’t going to be enough.

A flash of Sprint yellow in the corner of my eye showed a trailer selling yellow and clear slickers hand over fist, so I trotted over and got myself one. $5, not bad, and now, although steaming up with the greenhouse effect of the poncho over wet clothes, at least I wasn’t getting any more wet. I had my trusty waterproofed Dr. Marten’s on my feet, so they were nice and dry, having seen me through wetter and colder weather before.

But I now have a new wish….galoshes. I saw so many cute pairs of galoshes (we called them “rubbers” growing up, but that has a whole new definition as an adult, at least in America! LOL) at the track, I decided then and there I wanted some! Too late for this day, though.

Heading into the track, I knew right where I wanted to be….by the entrance to the track, where the pedestrian tunnel was, to watch the comings and goings of drivers etc. as they did their sponsor pre-race dances. Sure, this was clear around the other side from where my seat was, but I’d head over there later….

Dodging puddles, and indeed, giving up my trusty old umbrella at the gate, I gained the RELATIVE dryness of the area under the grandstand…well, if you didn’t count the waterfalls coming THROUGH the stands in spots! LOL

Making my way down to the track entrance, I started shedding the poncho as the dry spots got bigger, and my wind breaker, because although the rain was keeping it relatively cool, by Bristol standards, NOW I was starting to sweat!

Claiming a spot, I enjoyed the comings and goings. When the rain finally stopped, I headed up into the stands to get some pics, but always came back to my spot….I talked to a lovely young man who was one of many in red t-shirts hanging out in that area. No, they weren’t Kasey Kahne fans, they were National Guard, there to help with security…with all the rain there were few in the stands to patrol so they were in a holding pattern, but later, they were the ones who would be responsible for making sure fans didn’t scale the fences….in light of the guy we saw hanging like a monkey on the fence at Gateway in July when Carl won the race, I’d say they could have their hands full, and wished him good luck with that.

As the day wore on and drivers’ meeting time approached, the number of drivers, owners, etc, coming into the track increased, and I had a great time snapping photos.

When Jack Roush came through, all the fans there called out variations on “Welcome back, Jack!” to him as he walked by. He even paused long enough to make one young fan's day, with an autograph and a photo..

When Randy Fuller (Carl Edwards’ PR rep) walked out of the track alone, I called hello to him and wished him a good race. He said something back that I didn’t hear because of the ambient noise of all those people around, pointed over to the side of the walk-through area opposite from where I was, where some in Carl Edwards gear had gathered, and gave me a thumbs up, then headed on….it didn’t take me long to figure out he was letting me know Carl would be stopping with those fans, and to hang around if I wanted some pics. But then, you know I wasn’t leaving the one area all drivers have to go through to get into the track without seeing Carl, so I had no plans to move from that spot until he headed into the track.

Other than the tall guy who insisted on being in the way of some of the photos I took, I wasn’t disappointed…Carl hung out with those fans, doing a Q&A, for a quite a while before heading in to the drivers’ meeting. As he went by I and the other fans called out our well-wishes.

Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton were busy little bees, going back and forth to sponsor engagements throughout the time I was there, and even Junior Johnson went through to the pedestrian tunnel.

The previous nights’ Nationwide combatants came through not very far apart, which I found amusing…you’d think Brad and Kyle would stay as far apart as possible after all that.

After seeing Carl, I headed out for the trek around the track to my seat, going down by the start/finish line and right along the frontstretch for some photos, then made the climb up into the stands….as I was sitting in Pearson Terrace, WAYYY up, I took the first elevator I came to to get up there….Had I climbed, my out-of-shape butt likely wouldn’t have made it!! LOL

Finding a perch closer to the Start/finish line than my seat, with a better angle for shots of the trucks carrying drivers around the track, I waited.

I still say the highlight of the whole night was Brad Keslowski calling Kyle Busch an Ass while introducing himself during driver intros. THAT had the fans making so much noise, had there been a roof over that track, it would have been lifted off! I myself, no fan of EITHER driver, but aware of the fact that Kyle had dumped Brad the night before to win the Nationwide race, almost fell out of my chair laughing….And by some miracle, although I don’t know why I turned on the video when Brad was introduced, it was on…and I caught Brad’s opinion for my permanent collection.

Too too funny!!

A few intros later, I believe it was AJ Almandinger who said in his intro something to the effect of he just hoped he didn’t end up between Brad and Kyle. LOL

As many of you know, the drivers pick a song to play before they are introduced. Many I didn’t even recognize, because IMO, the track PA system didn’t play the song clips loud enough, so unless it was something immediately recognizable to me, like Mark Martin’s choice of Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way” and Carl’s “Why Can’t We be Friends?” (IMO, a little poke at his own troubled past with Brad! Also funny, considering how many friendships have been tested over the years by that little bullring, Bristol Motor Speedway), I missed it. Some just made me LOL (Todd Bodine’s choice was particularly amusing: the theme from “The Three Stooges”…considering his past in Cup series, when I use to refer to Todd wrecking someone as that someone getting “Bodined” that was particularly apt), and others made me scratch my head (Really, Jamie Mac? A country song??? Maybe because I don’t follow him enough to know what he prefers, I just never pegged him for a country music guy…but then again, who knew Mark Martin loves rap? LOL).

As race time approached, it was WONDERFUL to hear the kids singing the National Anthem, LIKE IT SHOULD BE, with no ad-libs or horrible tweaks as we have heard so often recently. Sadly, although if the rain came again I was going to stay good and dry, my seat was up under the suits in turn 1, and I could only hear the flyover. Also up there, if you’re not lucky, one of the support pillars will block part of your view of the track. So despite what I’ve always been told, there IS a bad seat at Bristol, depending on what you want to see.

The only highlight of the race for me was Jimmie Johnson getting wrecked. (ABJJ!! Or KB. Or BK. LOL). This wreck happened just after Carl’s pit crew missed a couple of lugnuts on one tire during the round of pit stops a few laps prior, causing him to have to come back in and go from running right were JJ was to back in the pack. On the plus side, as Bob relayed to Carl, the missing lugnuts and lost spots might have been a blessing in disguise, as if they hadn’t ended up back in the pack, it COULD have been them being wrecked by Montoya.

Hey, glass half full, why not?? At that point, they still had half the race to go, and a fast car, plenty of time to get back up to the front, right???

Unfortunately, the race settled into what you rarely see in a Nationwide or Truck race at Bristol, but which does occasionally happen during a Cup race since the track was resurfaced: a long green-flag run.

Now Carl qualified on the outside pole, his team selected the lead pit stall on the backstretch, one of the 2 best pit stalls at this track as in that stall: like the one on the frontstretch, there is no-one pitted in front of you…you just drive straight out, don’t have to worry about getting around another car in a pit stall in front of you.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think Carl wasn’t sure at what point during a green flag pit stop, when they enter the end of the pit lane their pit stall is on, and exit at the exit, instead of going all the way around both pit lanes like when they pit under caution, he could floor it after leaving his pit stall, while still on the flat. Bob told him they’d talk about it after the race on the radio, but I think Carl was supposed to just immediately start coming up to speed as soon as he left his pit stall, before merging into traffic in turn 4, and Carl said he waited until closer to turn 4 to really floor it….that caused him to end up back in the pack, and he almost immediately lost a lap.

Fortunately a caution FINALLY occurred, just in time for him to get the Lucky Dog pass. Sadly, though, another long green flag run spread out the pack, and Carl just didn’t have enough time to get up to the front.

The good news? Carl is now up to 4^th in points…Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart both having a bad night allowed his 13^th place finish to be enough to move up, so in the end, it was a good result from a fair night for the 99 team.

As the laps wound down, not wanting to fight through crowds down all those stairs, I worked my way to the ground level. Watching the last few laps from near the S/F line, I knew once again I was going to witness Kyle Busch winning. And THIS time, he’d finally get the Trifecta, winning all 3 races at a track in one weekend.

Nope, I was NOT going to watch that, it wasn’t worth fighting so much foot traffic out of the track, so I headed out to the bus, listening to the last couple of laps on the radio. Might as well get a head start on napping before they let the busses out of the lot an hour after the race finishes.

But all in all, getting rained on, Kyle Busch winning again, Carl having some bad luck and not ending up being in contention even though he had a car good enough to do so, I still say (as many many others do) Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the best tracks to be a fan at on the circuit!!! A bad day at Bristol beats a good day at a lot of other tracks any day!

Next time I’m sitting in the DW grandstand; I’m determined to find that set of seats perfect enough for me to consider buying season passes. I mean, come on, if I’m going to live this close for a few years, you KNOW I’ll be there!

Doing it Desert Style!!

Friday April 9 2010: Nationwide Race Day

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.

Topless Bars, Delayed Gratification, and Are My Eyebrows Still There???

November 12-15 2009

I know, I know, you’re thinking “What the heck kind of blog is this turning into??? Topless bars? What gratification??? And missing body parts??? WTH???”

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

Anyone who has watched NASCAR racing long enough has noticed at times, either while under power or turned off, there are flames licking out of the exhaust pipes of these vehicles. A newbie might go “OMG, it’s on fire!! Tell someone!! Get an extinguisher!! It’s going to blow up!!” because that’s what flames anywhere near a car on a TV show or movie cause, right? BOOM!!

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 3^rd 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!!