My first NASCAR race was this weekend.
I had won tickets last season in one of those pick-the-winningest-driver contests; especially since I thought I'd been bested at the last minute, I was overjoyed when I found out that I'd actually WON! At the time, I decided to take Debbi (the contest-holder wanted the guest's name months in advance) and though there was a brief moment earlier this week when I sorta wished I'd taken Tim, I've gotta say I'm glad Debbi was there. She's going through some rough stuff right now, and I think she enjoyed herself even though I spent chunks of the race writing notes to her on scraps of paper from my bag, to explain the basics of stock-car racing.
We actually had tickets to Friday's AND Saturday's races, but Debbi wasn't feeling well on Friday, and since she was my transportation for that day....I was fine with that, really; driving out to Joliet from Hyde Park twice in two days didn't really thrill me, and spending the weekend was off the boards because of the cat-beasts.
We got to the race at a time which I would have considered "early-ish" for an event--2 1/2 hours ahead--but apparently, "early" on a Saturday-night race weekend is code for "Wednesday afternoon". There were campers, tents, little gazebo-thingies...it was huger than the hugest thing I can imagine. E-freaking-normous. We had "Preferred Parking" passes, but there seemed to be a dearth of staff to point us to where, exactly, that might be; we followed some skanky-looking pickup truck for half a mile before he turned around and we realized that he had no clue where HE was going EITHER. (On principle, we didn't follow the FIRST truck we saw--the one with the Confederate flag waving.) Finally we just parked, on a grass lot with woodchips where the air smelled like horse-poots. We were very very scrupulous to note our position in the lot, because there were no signs ANYWHERE; we were three rows in from the chain-link fence.
Keep this in mind. It will--as anyone who knows me well might guess--become important.
So we went in through the gate, and since we had passes to the Hospitality Village, we asked where it was. Outside the gate, we were told. So we got our hands stamped and went back OUT through the gate, and wended our way towards the Village. The Hospitality Village is a bunch of canopy-tents with tables and chairs underneath, usually with food and/or the Trademarked Sponsor's Adult Beverage Offerings, and a TV and another table with Hospitality Swag. Each driver's sponsor puts up a tent for their driver's fans, and puts out things like keychains, lanyards (fifteen BILLION lanyards, I swear), Mardi-Gras beads, water bottles, foam can-holders, the works. However, as late as we got there, the schwag was depleted rather thoroughly--but I still got my Budweiser lanyard and my #9 bottle-opener!! (God, I feel like such a....You know, I don't KNOW what I feel like?? I don't think there's an equivalent word for "fangirl" in Redneck!!) I went looking for some Kyle Busch stuff to take to Tim, but curiously enough I couldn't find any.
Nor, for that matter, could I find a Kyle t-shirt trailer, even among the swarm of trailers which constituted the next stop in our travels; Debbi had to get some stuff for her bro-in-law, who she hates, but whatever; and I, of course, needed more Official Kasey Kahne Licensed Merchandise. (I had actually been hoarding a little cash for exactly this purpose.)
Now, as you might imagine, mixed in with all these trailers of stuff and merchandise and what not were QUITE a few vendors of beverages, adult and otherwise. But see, here's the thing: if you drink anything at a NASCAR event, you are in danger of having to use a bathroom at a NASCAR event. And I don't enjoy hover-peeing, which is really the only way to avoid an onslaught of biohazards which would intimidate a CDC scientist. So I forebore, completely. I thus had the opportunity to watch the race 100% sober--and 100% dehydrated, by the end of it. I think the raging thirst was worth it, facing the alternative.
However, those around me? Apparently held no such concerns. (How do you wear FLIP-FLOPS and drink that much beer at an outdoor event? Seriously. Frickin' EEEEEWWWW.) There were folks all around ranging from "lightly buzzed" to "can't walk down the stairs"...oh. Yeah. The stairs.
You know, I used to flatter myself that I was, for a heavy person, in decent shape. That all changed Saturday night, when I had to climb 82 steps to get to my 41st-row seat. That's 41 rows directly up, should you wonder (and directly to the right of the start-finish line, which: OMGWAFFLPONIES!!!! Absolutely no question, BEST SEATS IN THE PLACE. I couldn't have been more thrilled with that) and let me tell you, at Row 30 I had to stop and pull off to the side of the railing to let hardier folk pass. I was severely out of breath. Gonna have to do something about that (and incidentally, let me take this moment to say: remember how I was so worried when Debbi had her gastric bypass? She's now lost more than half her original weight and is a size 14, and looks AMAZING. If I didn't know what she had to go through, before and since, I'd think about having that little procedure myself--but that's gonna be the LAST choice I make, and only under extreme duress.) While I was catching my breath, Gavin DeGraw sang the National Anthem and the (Air Force? Army?) planes did a flyover. Flyovers? Are LOUD. Like, stadium-rattlingly loud. This was not something I knew before Saturday.
Anyway, despite my best efforts at dying on the way up the steps, we finally made it to our seats, just as they announced that the "most famous words in motorsports" would be offered by Brendan Fraser, who apparently has a new movie to pimp. And he pimped it most pimpingly; he hammed it up and positively bellowed the words: "GENTLEMEN!!! START....YOUR.....ENGINES!!!!!!" (He loses points for not doing the feminist version of that call, which starts with "drivers" instead of "gentlemen.")
And then? THE NOISE. When the green flag dropped I could feel my teeth rattling in my head. I was so, so grateful that Debbi, acting on a tip from her brother-in-law, had insisted we stop at a Walgreens for earplugs. I don't care how loud Darrel Waltrip says Fox Sports' "Crank It Up" feature is--it's still got NOTHING on the actual sound of 43 cars at full throttle.
About the race itself, what to say? Not too many cautions, most of them for the hated "debris on the track"--I swear to mercy, those are the biggest scam NASCAR's got going...Kasey didn't do so well, but Kyle kicked ass...and of course, the Kyle-haters in the stands had to show their collective asses by throwing beer bottles and cups over the fence. Niiiiiiice, guys. In the parking lot afterwards, there was this mullet-headed troglodyte with a "Honk If You Hate Kyle Busch #18" sign. Nobody was honking...
Well, okay, yeah they were--but not for HIM.
See, Joliet Speedway's parking facilities? Um...how shall I phrase this delicately...They blow goats. Diseased goats. Nary a signpost nor an area-marker anywhere; no pole with a big letter or number on top of it like at your basic shopping mall--NOTHING to tell you where your car might be, other than your own instinct and/or sense of direction, both of which go south when switching from daylight to darkness.
We walked around looking for our parking space for an HOUR. We were far, far from alone in this pursuit; there were many other lost souls doing the same thing, and an army of golf-carts with "Guest Services" people on the front and lost-looking guests on the back. And eventually, just about the time we were getting snappish ("Well, I kinda THOUGHT we were going the wrong way, but you seemed so sure I didn't want to say anything..." "Oh, you meant THAT fence. I thought you meant that OTHER fence, the one by the white tent." And so on....) we stumbled across the car. I mean almost literally stumbled; it was pure luck, nothing to do with intuition, logic or anything else. I think we just ran out of places the car could be.
And once we were in the car and started it up...we sat there. There were lanes and lanes of traffic feeding into this one dinky little road, and we SAT there. For 55 minutes, til both Debbi and I noticed the line of cars waaaaay along across the field, MOVING. Not fast, mind you, but moving. And so we watched as other cars broke ranks and drove across the fields, avoiding the campers and the tents and all the other little unlit obstacles in the dark--it's a serious miracle no one was killed--and got to the other line.
Where we sat...but fortunately for not as long. Once we finally got onto the main road, we found the source of the snag in the other line....two Will County Sheriff's cars, smashed into each other at the front of the road. Par for the course...
Eventually, after a stop at a gas station which yielded the Best Pepsi I Have Ever Experienced, and a ride through the cornfields and one of those heart-to-heart best-friend talks (which had the good/bad result of reminding me that, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I am NOT the only person on earth with good memories of JP...yeah, I had a good cry over that later)...anyway, we got home. Well, Debbi got home; I got back to Mom's, where she decided that it was too late to drive me back home--she was afraid she'd fall asleep behind the wheel, and I certainly wasn't going to chance THAT, not even for two spoiled hungry bratty cats--so I stayed over at Mom's and came home Sunday.
So yeah--I had an INCREDIBLE time, and the race was great; Chicagoland Speedway ain't bad if you don't have to park anywhere, or climb the stairs, but otherwise...not so much; and no, I do NOT hate Kyle Busch--in fact, he sorta rules.
But he's still not, nor will ever be, as hot as Kasey.
