Richmond International Raceway

Back at the end of April, Ash and I hit up Richmond for the Toyota Owner’s 400 NASCAR race at Richmond International Raceway. I’m not entirely sure if it’s post worthy, but I figure I’ll give it a shot and add some material to the trips and travel section.

The plan was to leave early morning and make the 8 hour drive in time for the 7p start time. Like always, I left the business of packing until about 8a on the day we were supposed to leave, spent 15min throwing stuff into a backpack, and called it good enough. As per usual, there were no maps nor blasted GPS. I looked at a map at the house, memorized a few key roads, and just left. Like I always say, “I’m Native, I don’t get lost” ;)

Most of the trip was largely uneventful. Other than a stint on I86 and the 220, it was mostly traveling the lovely back roads that wound through the hills of PA. Sure, this type of driving may take longer, but getting there is half the fun. I’d rather have a long, lovely journey than a slightly less long monotonous struggle. A key find on the journey came by way of Pandora internet radio. The song Daddy’s Cup by “Drive-By Truckers” was a gem found that completely reminded me of my days with my uncle. It’s all about, what else, old school short track racing and the guys who partake in it. I’d somehow never heard it before, and funny thing hearing it for the first time while on the way to NASCAR.

My innate sense of direction was flawless the whole way from my drive way right to the front gate of the track, with one exception. My idea to just keep going “East and South” was put to the test on the 495 outside of DC, where it split into 495 East and 495 South. While my skills are impressive, my luck is not, and any 50/50 chance is more likely to result in failure than victory (as both this trip and my baccarat history prove). That snag was the only issue I had the whole way, and only resulted in about a 7 minute whip around. Not bad for a 20 second glance at a map =)

We made one stop before the track for beer, obviously. Face’s Second Law of Road Trips, if I may steal Nareed’s style, is that any random stop of mine will always be in the most suspect of areas. Anytime the cooler has less milk than Mad Dog 20/20, and fewer bars in the candy rack than there are on the windows, you know you’ve made poor life decisions. Fortunately it was a non eventful in-and-out, and we got our cooler full of Bud Light without incident. One of these days I’m going to remember that I’m from “Southern Canada” and if I want Labatt Blue, I’m going to have to bring it with me =p

Arriving to the track was odd, although you’d expect I’d be used to it by now. Every time I go to a track, I guess I expect it to be like football and hockey, ie in city center. Every track I’ve been to has been in the middle of nowhere. Richmond is basically on the edge of a light neighborhood right before the nothing begins. The gate in leads into a random empty field you’d expect for a country fair. I loved it as it allows balls out partying, and having several separate smaller fields as opposed to one grand field keeps things sort of intimate and friendly instead of a madhouse. I could’ve been at my local short track, it was that small.

The plan was to meet The Sheriff down there and pre-game, but the scale of things was too great. By the time we figured out where we were in relation to him, the time wasn’t there to travel the distance. We settled for a little party in my truck before going out and getting pulled into tens of random parties along the way (as is tradition at a race).

My memory is hazy, but I reckon it must’ve been damn near 2 miles from parking to the track. Between the booze and the crowd, you kind of just get picked up and carried along, so it wasn’t bad at all. To boot, the parking fields get filled as you come, so there is no searching for your section. That makes it fantastic for getting in and out, but after the 2 mile walk to the track, we found ourselves directly opposite of where we needed to be. No biggie, just grab two more giant beers for the trip and walk another 1.5 miles around the track. It’s all good when the sun’s shining and the beer’s flowing =)

Reaching any stadium is a real pleasure of mine, there’s just something about it. Maybe I’ve played too many video games coming up, but they always remind me of some grand tomb protecting a treasure within. The outsides are always impressive and imposing, never giving away the secret which lay within. You reach the Black Gate…err…chain link fence… and have to make it past the army of Uruk-hai…umm… old folks with ticket scanners… and then you’re inside. And still, there is no clue. The Aud always reminded me of an old factory, FirstNiagara reminds me of an airport, hell, even Richmond International just looked like a bigger version of my local short track. All you can see are bleachers, and they’re only three times as high. It’s not until you reach that point, that little cut in the stands that gives sight to the battlefield below, that things just take off. The whole walk there Ash was commenting on how familiar it looked and how excited she was, but I didn’t feel that buzz yet. I was buzzing hard, knowing what was in store, but it wasn’t until she got her first glimpse of the track revealing the scale that I finally felt that buzz returned. Yeah, this was going to be awesome!

Our seats were on the Start/Finish line, ten rows up from the track because that’s how I roll ;) Turns out, we were right above the entrance in, so where we were, row 10 was actually the last row before the track. There goes irritant #1 – people standing up in front of you. We got seated next to a younger, college aged kid, who was young enough to be loud but old enough to be respectful. There goes irritant #2 – sitting next to asshats. And with his small frame and no one on the other side of use, the trifecta was complete – no getting squished by large bodies. We were off to a great start.

The young buck was an Edwards fan, which pleased me deeply. No chance he was going to get annoying later in the night. He asked me who I was pulling for, and started to bust my balls when I answered “Montoya”. That resulted in the obvious next question – “Why?” which set off a long conversation about all types of racing. Needless to say, I was quite happy with my row mate as he was about into everything as I was.

A NASCAR race is something anyone who’s into cars or racing has to see once. There are no words or experiences that can convey the act of being there. I told Ash it would be loud, no, not even loud. It was going to consume her entire being, totally block out the world. And it does. Even when they fired ‘em all up at the call and just sat there idling, you cannot talk without placing mouth to ear and screaming. I saw goosebumps on her arms and tears in her eyes, it’s such a powerful experience. I of course had earplugs ready, but told her to wait until about Lap 5 just to feel the full effect. Again, even at pace speeds your teeth rattle, your eyes water, your brain tickles with the vibration. And when all 37,000 horsepower cut loose at the green flag, man, I’m getting chills just remembering it. There is simply nothing on this Earth like it.

The race was a good one and our seats were great. The giant jumbo-tron was perfectly set on the backstretch allowing me to suss things out when the one-off paint schemes, the night, and my colorblindness caused me to lose track of people. Montoya was running in the top 10 most of the day, and it looked like things were going to work out good. At about Lap 230, I left for my one trip for fried dough, nachos, and any other awesomely bad food I could find.

Montoya continued to stay up, and after a stop with 70ish to go, he took the lead. And he lead. And he lead. The caution came out, he didn’t pit, and I thought “there goes that”. But when the green waved again, he took off again. Leading, leading, caution again. Again, he doesn’t come in. I’m starting to curse his name now. Here’s yet another race he has a chance at and his team just has no strategy whatsoever. They always piss it away somehow, and now I gotta watch it happen live. The green waves, and Lo!, off to the races he goes again. Not only is he leading, but he’s dominating. People take a run, burn up their gear and fall off, and he just keeps on motoring. Now I’m getting excited. 15 to go, he’s strong. 12 to go, no sign of stopping. At about 8 to go…CAUTION! Damn and blast! I know it’s gonna be a green/white/checker finish, and I know it’s gonna be a shit-show. He needs to get in, get two, and get out to stay ahead of the melee. He comes down first, nails the pit, and TAKES FOUR TIRES! Ye bleeding idiot! He ends up coming out 8th or so, and while he gave it hell, there’s just no way to make up those places in 2 laps. He wound up with a solid top 5 and that idiot Harvick took the win.

The walk back surely was longer than the walk there, but again, there’s such a mass of humanity you just get kind of sucked up in it and are where you want to be in no time. We got out of the lot in just 40 minutes and made it out of town without so much as a hiccup or delay (Lowes took me over three hours just to get out of the parking lot ><). Before we knew it, it was just after 12a and we were already back on the I95.

Although we had a hotel reserved, the “fun” of the trip was over and we both had only one thing on our mind – make it home in time to go fishing the next day =D We decided to power through it. I told her to go to sleep and I just trucked until I could truck no more, eventually pulling over well passed DC. I figured I’d catch a trucker’s nap and be home early afternoon, but Ash popped awake when I stopped and was rarin’ to go. I let het take the wheel, jotted down a few numbers to represent the roads, and told her to just keep going North and West. I woke up once about an hour south of Bradford, made sure she was fine, and next thing I knew we were in my driveway.

All told, it was a BUF to RICH round trip with a race in the middle that took but 26hrs. As always, it was a completely amazing experience and now she’s hooked. I couldn’t have planned it any better =)

My favorite part of it all is I got a track flag from the vendor as I always do. I explained that I have one from every track I’ve been to, which Ash never saw since they’re still packed up from the move. As they’re 3’x5’ and this would be my third one, I was worried where I’d put it. My garage is only so big, after all. I came home a week later and found she hung it right in the living room. KEEPER! =D

(LOL I just realized I never looked at any of the 100 pictures we took that night. I’ll check them out tonight and maybe pop some in if they’re any good)