Gentlemen, start your engines...

I went to the races this weekend, specifically, the Busch and NASCAR races at the Texas Motor Speedway. I know nothing about automobile races, in fact, I know so little about them that I don’t know whether I should use an article when referring to them (as in, "the" Busch and "the" NASCAR races), or whether they’re just called Busch and NASCAR (like the British say they’re "going to hospital" vs. we Americans, who say we’re going to "the" hospital, as if there were just one. But I digress.

Late last week, I got a call from my ex inviting me to join him and some friends who were driving up from Houston for the races, and who generously provided the (much sought after and absurdly pricey) tickets for all of us. NASCAR fans are serious fans. In addition to the stadium seating, Dallas provides over 5,000 camping spaces at the Texas Motor Speedway for fans who travel here to see the race. According to the Texas Motor Speedway website: "The Speedway offers five distinct camping areas suited to a wide variety of needs and requirements".

The 5 areas are Infield camping, VIP camping, Reserved campgrounds, Tent City, and Unreserved. Camping, too, can be very pricey. Tent City and Unreserved may be affordable, but infield camping ranges from $700 (yep, 3 digits...and that’s for interior infield) to $2000 (paddock, row 1). Judging by the expensive and elaborate rigs that inhabited most of the infield, this is not exactly a hardship for most of those camping there. Also, all infield camping requires that each person have an Infield Pass ($65), which can be purchased at the gate.

I’ve been up for some new experience, and to that end, I’ve been considering the Cypress Valley Canopy Tours...the Busch/NASCAR races were quicker, didn’t require the emotional psyching that I’m going to have to do to myself to do the canopy tour, and were (for me) a freebie, so I immediately said yes.

From the moment we arrived, early Saturday morning, luck was with me. For starters, we had tickets to one of the Luxury Suites...meaning, instead of sitting in the stands, in the bright Texas sun, on hard benches without backs, where the noise from the cars is so deafeningly loud that earplugs are essential, we got to watch the races from the comfort of cushy seats, in an air conditioned, quiet suite complete with a full buffet and private restrooms and an incredible view of the entire track.

As if that weren’t enough, there were drawings for prizes, and luck being with me, very shortly after arriving on Saturday morning I won two things: a collapsible cooler on wheels (handy, should I decide that I want to bring 4 six-packs of beer to any event I plan to attend in the future), and something really amazing: a place as a driver in the Driver Intro Parade. In plain English, I won a place driving a brand new Chevy Silverado truck on a single lap around the track of the Texas Motor Speedway, with a race car driver standing behind me, in the bed the truck I was driving, waving to the roaring crowd. Of over 200,000 people attending the races as spectators, just 43 of us got to actually drive around the track on Saturday morning. For someone who didn’t even learn to drive until I was 30, and who has never, ever, driven any sort of truck, it was a very cool experience, if I do say so myself. Trust me, I called friends on my cell phone to tell them exactly where I was, as I sat in the truck at the edge of the track, waiting to pick up the racer assigned to me.

Kyle Busch was the racer assigned to ride with me. A rising star, Mr. Busch is a gracious and impressive young man who began racing at age 13. He graduated from high school a year early to further his racing career, only to be prohibited from competing in any of NASCAR's series after the sanctioning body decided that drivers had to be 18 or older. The mother in me doesn’t think that’s a bad idea, as the average speed on Sunday was 137 mph. Just 20 years old (the same age as my sons!) he's twice been named Rookie of the Year. Mr. Busch came in 4th on Saturday, and 15th in the NASCAR on Sunday. In terms of points, at the end of race on Sunday, he was 7th overall.

When we got to our trucks on Saturday, there was a sort of one-way walkie talkie radio for each of us, from which we received instructions as to what to do. Amid much static, this is what I heard (yep, I’m such a nerd, I took notes):

"Fire ‘em up!"
"Headlights ‘n hazards on!"
"Thumbs up, outside yer windows, if y’all can hear me on yer radios!"
"Ladies ‘n gen’lmen, we’re fixin’ to roll in 5 minutes!"
"Wait for the truck to yer right to roll out, then snug behind ‘em!"
"Awright, let’s rock! Go ahead ‘n block it off, we’re gonna start comin’ out!"
"Awright, ladies and gen’lmen, we’re gonna start rollin’...nice an’ tight to the person in front a you...nice an’ tight...we got 43 of ‘em we gotta snug ‘em on in here..."

And then, one by one, we pulled out onto the track, where the trucks looked rather beautiful: red, black, red, black...to the end of the line.



















A few observations. The Texas Motor Speedway is an oval, 1.5 miles around. Racers drove 200 laps on Saturday, and 334 laps on Sunday. The track is much steeper than it appears from a distance, with 24-degree banks. Up close, these appear to be almost vertical, so I stayed on the flats (as we were, in fact, sternly admonished to do) in my single lap. When I got home, I looked up track banking statistics on the web: at Indianapolis, the banks are 12 degrees; at Nashville, 14; at Daytona, 31. In the Driver Intro Parade, in spite of the fact that my ex calls me "leadfoot", I drove s l o w l y ...after all, I had a racer standing in the back of the truck.

I have to admit, I had a great time, but I also have to say, that although I attended NASCAR this weekend, I have no intention of "gettin’ ink done".