Saturday, April 1

Once again, the plan was to head out early to the track. This time, we wanted to catch Winston Cup second round qualifying and get a good spot to watch the Busch race. I was still gathering stuff up (will I ever learn to pack my gear the night before?) and Mom was rushing to get us out the door. We were half way to the interstate when I realized I had forgotten my rain suit, and of course, there was a high chance of rain. But there was no turning back, I would just have to buy a poncho at the track.

When we got to the track, once again we found that the gates were locked. This was really starting to get on my nerves. How are fans supposed to get into the race if the stupid gates are locked? And how are emergency vehicles supposed to get in and out? And what point is there to locking them in the first place? Once we found a way into the grassy parking lot, we found that they were allowing campers to set up in the parking areas (the track already has a designated camping area). Some of the cars and campers were set up so that they blocked the parking lot roads and took up anywhere from 2 to 6 car parking spaces. It's bad enough that the management of this track keeps us parking in the dirt and mud, but when they start giving away our parking spaces to campers, that's just too much.

Inside the track was even worse. Areas that used to be designated parking lots with plenty of room for infield bystanders and walk-ins up against the fence now has been sold off to more campers and RVs. Every inch of the fence in Turns 1 and 2 are now camping sites (they go for $1000 for the weekend), and pedestrians in the infield (that would be the peons like me who spend anywhere from $35-$50 for the glory of hauling in a lawn chair and staking off a spot the size of my closet from which I can see only 1/4 of the track) now have almost no where to sit. We wound up on the edge of the asphalt at the North Tunnel, right by the RV Dump Station. Yeah, Bruton treats his NASCAR fans real nice, don't he?

Shortly after we set up, we got up and moved to the other end of the track, mostly to get away from a rude family with several children who set up behind us. Between the wild kids and the vicious little poodle, we decided it was time to go. We found a half decent view of Turns One and Two, and got set up there just in time for the rain to hit. Luckily, I had found myself a poncho first thing when we got to the track, but by the time I got it on, it was a good steady rain, and I was soaked.

My cameras and binoculars were stowed safely in a little soft sided cooler I'd brought, but my lawnchair had a fabric seat and Mom had her camera, binoculars, and video camera. We stashed some of our stuff underneath a pickup we were standing behind for shelter. We thought this would protect everything from getting rained on. What we hadn't considered was the fact that it might all float away in the river of water that was gathering all around us. The south end of the infield is a big bowl, and it was filling up fast. And there is absolutely no form of shelter there unless you brought it yourself. By the time we gathered up our stuff again, we were ankle deep in water, and it was rising fast.

We headed back to Mom's car as soon as the rain let up. We thought we might wait it out, but when the radio said it would be several hours before they could get the track dry enough to race again, we decided it was time to leave. I have almost no pictures of Saturday -- between the camera that wasn't advancing, and not wanting to get moisture of any sort in any of my gear, it just didn't happen. The only two pictures I did get were of these two limousines.

I don't think this one belongs to a driver, but it sure looks like it would be fun to ride around in.

I actually took pictures of this one only because it was cute, then I found out later that it belongs to Joe Gibbs Racing. Bobby Labonte uses this limo when he has to leave the track for appearances and such. The driver was a nice guy and was often seen drying, shining, and polishing this Interstate Batteries-mobile.

Sunday, April 2

At 5:58 AM, we arrive at the track. We're actually a bit later than usual, since we like to get a head start on the traffic and do a little sleeping in the car until the crews start arriving by helicopter. Once again the gates to the parking areas are locked. A security guard at the gate tells us that he doesn't even have a key. I think to myself, "Gee, I hope none of those campers in there has a heart attack or something and needs to drive to the hospital. They won't be able to get out!" I complain to the guard that I have an infield pass which states that I can get into the infield anytime after 2:00 pm Wednesday, so why can't I go in. He tries to get us to go around to the South Tunnel to drive into the infield. After explaining that we don't have a pass to park in the infield, and that there is nowhere to park on that side of the track, he shrugs and assures us that the gate will open in thirty minutes. Then he tells us that if we want to get in line, we can pull up behind two other cars that were waiting for the gates to open.

At 6:30, the line in front of us is not moving. A guy from a vehicle waiting behind us gets out of his car and walks up to the security guard. We think the gate is opening, but we have grown suspicious that the cars in front of us have no people in them. We drive up to the gate and the security guard tells us that the gate won't open for another 30 minutes. Indeed, there are no people in the cars he asked us to wait behind. Those people got tired of waiting hours before and just walked on in. I'm getting a bit irate by now, because we've missed a lot of the crews coming in. The security guard finally tells us to drive around to the other side of the track and we can get to the inner ring road from there. Sure enough, we drove around to the East side of the track where police and security directed us down Earnhardt Avenue, and from there we were able to get to our parking spot. Of course, if he'd told us that tiny bit of info 45 minutes earlier, we might have gotten a better spot.

We went back to the edge of the asphalt near the North Tunnel to set up. No way was I going to be caught in the flood of Turn One again. Turns 3 and 4 in the infield are on a little hill so all the rain there goes down toward the center of the infield. We chose nearly the same spot we'd had the day before. Then Mom and I took turns wandering and taking pictures. I spotted Jack Roush getting out of a limo in front of the garage gates. Unfortunately, this was before I had figured out what was wrong with my camera, so that one didn't turn out either. I also spotted Robin Pemberton walking in from the helicopter pad.

While Mom walked around, I had the opportunity to talk to one of the CBS camera operators. We had set up our chairs almost right behind the camera platform. The camera operator had gone up early to set up the camera and get things ready, and had come back down to wait for her ride. She asked to sit in Mom's lawn chair, and we just started talking from there.

I asked her if she worked for CBS and she told me that CBS doesn't hire very many people any more. Most of the camera operators, like herself, are freelance. It saves CBS from having to pay benefits. So she just basically works for whoever calls and decides whether or not to take a job on an event by event basis. I wish I had the forethought to ask her what she thought of the NASCAR TV deal, and whether it would affect her or not, but I didn't think about it until she was gone.

I never caught her name, but she explained to me that she was more than a bit nervous about working this track. She has worked the NASCAR circuit before, but the camera platforms at Texas are closer to the track than any others on the circuit. This makes it very hard to track the cars as they pass and also increases the danger of getting hit by flying debris. She also explained that Texas has some of the worst acoustics for a track. Everything echoes, so when the camera operators hear the screech of a car wreck, they don't know where to look to get it on tape because the sound is coming from all directions at the same time.

Another thing of interest she told me was that she thought Texas was one of the tamest tracks as far as fan rowdiness. She laughed as she talked about races at Indy and Watkins Glen where the people were drunk, rowdy, crude, lewd, obscene, and just about everything else you could think of. She thought the people who came to the races at Texas were nice. Hey, I think so, too.

Later in the morning, Mom and I met John and Debbie Hyde from Oklahoma City. They set up beside us and we had a nice time talking to them. NASCAR fans being the truly nice people that they generally are, they agreed to watch our stuff while we walked and took pictures, and we did the same for them. I managed to get a few, but not of the quality I'd had Friday.

Here's Mike Skinner as he heads for the garage. He was one of the few drivers who actually stopped and waved "Hi" to the fans.

Tony Stewart was far less gracious. I used to think he was pretty cool, but after this incident, I'm not so sure. A fan with a Garage Pass was waiting at the gate between the garage and the motorhome area, getting autographs from drivers as they passed through. He was very unassuming, didn't hinder anyone's progress, in fact, he was downright polite. He held his hat out to Tony Stewart for an autograph, Tony grabbed it and said, "What? Do you guys stand here and wait for us to come out?" It wasn't said nicely, it wasn't said in jest, and he had the most disgusted look on his face as he signed the autograph and then signed something for some other people who had walked up. Here's a picture of him and the guy he said it to, I only wish I'd gotten another picture that showed that look on his face. It must be the "open-wheel-driver" coming out in him or something, because I've never seen a NASCAR driver act that way.

Here's Rick Mast.

Bobby Labonte (front seat) rides by on his way to a "Hospitality" function.

And here's Dale Earnhardt Junior, relaxing in a golf cart painted to match his #8 Budweiser car as he heads to a "Hospitality" appearance.

I caught this picture of the Miller Lite and Mobile 1 crews coming in late. We didn't know it at the time, but the crews were stuck in an airport waiting out some bad weather. They arrived at the track just one hour before the start of the race.

I won't try to recap the race itself. Too many others have done it much better than I could anyway. I did take lots of pictures, but mostly I just listened to the scanner and shouted loudly every time Dale Earnhardt or Dale Junior zipped by. I did pick up some rather interesting conversations over the scanner, though. Oh, and here's a tip for anyone who's never been to a Cup race: Don't try to listen to more than one driver at a time! I had my scanner set to pick up the frequencies for Dale Earnhardt, Dale Junior, and Steve Park, and it got really confusing trying to tell who was saying what, not to mention the fact that I'm sure I missed a lot of really neat stuff.

Here's some pictures of the parade laps.

One thing I did pick up on was a few incidents involving Steve Park. In Park's defense, I have to say that the #32 car of Scott Pruett was "going backwards" after being passed by Dale Jr., and to me it looked like Pruett just came down into Park. I came home and watched the tape several times to check, and it didn't look like Park's fault at all. After the incident on pit road, I heard his crew telling him to "settle down, NASCAR knows what happened and they're watching."

And would someone please tell me what Jeff Gordon did that makes this track wreak such vengeance against him? He must have done something, because he's definitely got some kind of voodoo hex working against him here.

Later in the race, Rusty beat Dale Jarrett back to the line for a caution on lap 156. Rusty told Jarrett through their spotters that he'd let him get back by, but Jarrett declined, stating that he'd get it back on his own. Looked to me like he did just that.

During pits under caution, Earnhardt received a penalty for speeding down pit road, which sent him to the end of the longest line. Over the scanner, I heard Earnhardt talking to his crew, insisting that he was not speeding, and several others said the same.

Here's the #88 car getting towed away.

Here's Matt Kenseth in the #17 car, spinning out of Turn 3. I barely caught this one.

And finally, here's the race winner taking one of his victory laps.

I missed listening to him and his crew as he took the checkers (I had switched over to PRN), but I did catch a brief conversation shortly after that. His crew was urging him to "do something special" for his victory lap, but Dale Jr. answered, "Can't do nuthin' special with a burnt up clutch," and then later to his crew chief, "The clutch is burnt, ain't it Tony?" To that, Tony Eury answered, "Yeah". Watching the video of the race the next day, I noticed that his crew met him on the way to pit road and helped push the car to Victory Lane, but I don't recall hearing anyone mention a bad clutch on the TV broadcast.

One final comment about the TV broadcast of the end of the race -- the scene as Dale Jr. drove his car past the other crews, all lined up to congratulate him, was very reminiscent of a race not so long ago, when his dad drove past a line of crewmen, congratulating him on his way to Victory Lane after the Daytona 500! Go Dale Earnhardt! (both of them!)

My final pictures are of the drivers leaving the track. We hung around for a while, not wishing to be stuck in the mass exodus, and decided to have a little fun while we waited.

Here's Jeff Burton.

I spotted Ned Jarrett right away, but didn't realize Dale was in the same golf cart until it was nearly past us (sitting on the dash). And Todd Parrott was there as well.

Here's Terry Labonte.

This is Terry Labonte's motorhome.

And this is John Andretti's motorhome.