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General Site Info => General Discussion => Topic started by: Blazin on July 18, 2011, 11:06:25 pm
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Spent the day yesterday at the magic mile with 100,000 plus of my closest friends!
101.4 degrees, humidity wasn't bad, a nice Easterly 10 or so MPH breeze. Couldn't have asked for a better day!
(http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/BlazinK30/NHIS7-17-112.jpg)
Coming into tun 4:
(http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/BlazinK30/NHIS7-17-113.jpg)
Out of 4 heading for the green flag on a restart:
(http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/BlazinK30/NHIS7-17-114.jpg)
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nice been to the monster mile a couple times but i hate it lol. would much rather work on the truck and listen to it on the radio, and not deal with the traffic. but about the first picture was that guy making a fashion statement ot trying to prevent a redneck?
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its coo to pop yo colla!
went to the road course at infineon a few years ago.
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He had a thing to keep cool with and I think the collar just helped it stay around his neck better is all. Traffic isn't to bad here if you get there a few hours early, come and go from the north entrance. Plus when the race is over, no dilly dallying. Get out, get to your car, and go!
As far as going, I would never go if I had to buy the tickets. I got them for free from the Manchester Mack / McDevitt Trucks parts salesman. From getting up from our seats, to pulling into my driveway was just shy of two hours. On a non race day it takes about thirty minutes to drive from my house to the track.
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the last 7 or 8 times i've been to a Sprint race was working it on pit road since Richmond Int'l raceway is in the county i work law enforcement in. Even saw myself on TV in winner's circle when Clint Bowyer won Richmond a few years back. I was with pit reporter Dave Burns who was assigned to cover Earnhardt. Earnhardt was winning in last lap so we ran to winners circle, but, someone took out Earnhardt and Bowyer won.
There is always a lot of action on pit road that is not seen on tv. One time a drunk dude w/ a pit pass sat on Jimmie Johnson's stack of tires that was to go on his car next pit and the dude passed out. Needless to say, he was escorted out quickly after he started arguing with the pit members.
Because both richmond races are at night, there are always spectators who have been drinking for nearly 12 hrs by the time the green flag drops.
I still keep my season tickets, usually just sell them though. When my son gets a little older, we'll start going again. It's not the same being a spectator now, over the years i've been in all the driver's pits during races at one time or another. Usually one pit reporter (there are usually 4 on pit road) covers about 10 pit spaces. It's funny, whomever is leading the race, the pit reporter stays in that pit and they just pass notes back and forth to the crew chief: loose, tight, 20 laps to pit, etc...can't hear anything. We must stay with the pit reporter and his camera crew in case some photographer wants to jump up and take a pic and all you see is his back in the camera view. We give them one warning, then out he goes.
Glad Newman and the Army car won...my nephew goes to Afghanistan tonight, a new Army soldier.
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I will keep your nephew in my thoughts.
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Cool Man! I was in the MESS at Kentucky Speedway!!!!! Not really worth the "follow the leader" race they had there.
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i heard about that mess in KY. You'd think that they would have thought about the traffic and stuff b4 having a hundred thousand people come there. Richmond, built in the '40's, is probably not too much different in the roads leading to the track, but, all lanes become incoming lanes b4 the race and after the race all two lane and four lane roads transfer to all lanes going one way away from the track.
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Thats how NH does it. Three lanes out after the race going south, nothing going north from the south. Two lanes going north, away from the speedway. One lane going south, from the north.
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The only thing KY Speedway did to prep for the race was add more seats, advertise it, print the tickets and sit back and collect their $$$$$$! There was nobody in the parking lots directing traffic which is where the backup started! There is nothing wrong with I-71. We rolled along it at like 80MPH+ until we hit the jam up that began in the parking lots. People were turning into them and then parking where ever they wanted to because of no direction. The lots where probably at 60% capacity. The streets out front are like 7+ lanes wide but they used 4 to get in and still had the 3 going out instead of using all to go in and then switch to all going out at the end of the night....... Spent like 8 additional hours in the car breathing exhaust and burning $4 a gallon gasoline!
Oh well, next year I'll be out on the deck with the TV and a bucket O cold ones!
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that makes a difference. At RIR, there are hundreds of workers and officers directing traffic into the lots from the roads and dictate where you park to maximize space and to get cars off the roads and traffic flowing. They do a great job considering an additional 110,000 people coming to our county during the weekend.
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I will keep your nephew in my thoughts.
thanks Blazin. He landed in Kandahar this morning. He has a long 15 months ahead of him. It is 102 degrees in my backyard right now, but, it is nothing compared what he's facing there.
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The only thing KY Speedway did to prep for the race was add more seats, advertise it, print the tickets and sit back and collect their $$$$$$! There was nobody in the parking lots directing traffic which is where the backup started! There is nothing wrong with I-71. We rolled along it at like 80MPH+ until we hit the jam up that began in the parking lots. People were turning into them and then parking where ever they wanted to because of no direction. The lots where probably at 60% capacity. The streets out front are like 7+ lanes wide but they used 4 to get in and still had the 3 going out instead of using all to go in and then switch to all going out at the end of the night....... Spent like 8 additional hours in the car breathing exhaust and burning $4 a gallon gasoline!
Oh well, next year I'll be out on the deck with the TV and a bucket O cold ones!
I've been to Talledega 6 times starting in the early 80's and it to be the same as you say Ky was. You were just on your on. We didn't know where to go. Finally made it to the infield and still didn't know which way was which. The first time we went I couldn't even figure out where the pits or the start/ finish line was. Much better and WAY more organized now.
To Sgt Del: I have been watching NASCAR all my life. I remember when they were called Grand Nationals. That was before Winston got involved. Anyway, Richmond was going to loose their date with NASCAR if they did not make some changes / imporvements to the track and facility. They reconfigured the track from a 1/2 mile to a mile and now it is one of the best and most exciting tracks on the circut. If I could attend any race, I would choose Richmond. Even over the night race at Bristol.
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yeah, bob, it is a fun race to watch. It is called the excitement track for a reason, and, being both races are at night, it is awesome to tailgate all day and wait for 7:30 for saturday night racin' at it finest.
But, it isn't considered a superspeedway (by def: a mile or bigger). They expanded it in '86 from 1/2 mile to a D shaped 3/4 mile...the current pit road used to be the front stretch. Lots of history there. It used to be called the state fair at strawberry hill. The old dirt track was just part of the state fairgrounds. Two years ago, the state fair left because when ISC bought the property from Paul Sawyer, they forced the fair out and now it is known as the RIR complex. ISC owns Charlotte, bristol, and many other tracks.
BTW, the Va State fair is now held at the old Meadows Farm, made famous because it was there where Secretariat was born and trained before winning the triple crown. The new disney Secretariat movie mentions "the meadows" a lot and is a well done movie.
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3/4 of a mile. I stand corrected. It really is some good racing. "Rubbin is racing" and there is plenty of rubbing going on there.I think Bruton Smith owns ISC. He also purchased Kentucky Speedway recently. That's how they got the Sprint Cup cars to come finally. He has tremendous stroke.
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I think Kentucky is owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc. I was wrong is saying ISC owned Bristol and Charlotte as well. The old days of having individuals own the different tracks and racking up millions are way over. When the former owner of RIR, Paul Sawyer, died, his sons each got something like $30 million---an incredible amount.
You'd think, with all the experience of Bruton and his boys at Speedway Motorsports, Inc, they'd know how to keep a smooth flow of traffic into the track. Just sayin'
(http://www.speedwaymotorsports.com/smi_logo.gif)
Speedway Motorsports, Inc (Bruton Smith, founder 1994) owns:
http://www.speedwaymotorsports.com/ (http://www.speedwaymotorsports.com/)
Infineon
Kentucky
Bristol
Charlotte
Atlanta
Vegas
Texas
New Hampshire
among others
International Speedway Corp (The France family) owns:
http://www.internationalspeedwaycorporation.com/?homepage=true (http://www.internationalspeedwaycorporation.com/?homepage=true)
Auto Club Speedway-California
Chicagoland Speedway
Darlington Raceway
Daytona International Speedway
Homestead-Miami Speedway
Kansas Speedway
Martinsville Speedway
Michigan International Speedway
Phoenix International Raceway
Richmond International Raceway
Talladega Superspeedway
Watkins Glen International
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I agree, bruton smithe(no caps for him) should have ran things WAY better. It was like it was the first race he ever hosted! In addition to the traffic, the line for the bathrooms was 40 people at each door all day/night long. He added 40,000 seats and didn't add bathrooms. He says he spent $100 million in upgrades... I've been going to KY Speedway since it opened and I didn't see any noticable upgrades. (Where'd the $100 mill actually go if that was what was spent?) The gates to get in were a joke then to leave 80,000 people had to squeeze thru 4 openings at each gate to get out. Oh I could go on all day.
Sorry, I really am done complaining about this. Promise. It's just that it was so patheticaly run and he is blaming it on the roads to get there.......
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I know some folks who went to Texas for the first race and came back saying pretty much the same thing. The traffic in and out was terrible. Actually there was not even enough parking for everyone and some people had to park on the side on the interstate. Not cool for how much you pay for tickets. They finally got everything straightened out. I think that if the Big Boys go back to Ky next year it will be a different place. Bruton made a ton of money on this event, now he can spend some more mon more improvments.
Do you realize how much stroke he has to have to get the France family to even give him a date at Ky?
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Hey im heading back to the states soon from my deployment in afghan.....im tired of this place its my second time comming here...what unit is he in if you know? i just want to get home to work on my 74
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He's at FOB Ramrod, i guess that's a big place for our troops in Afghanistan--plugging it in youtube and many vids come up.
I don't know his company, just now he just finished Army boot camp from Ft Leonard Wood just two months ago or so and spent a couple of months at Ft Lewis, Washington. He said it took him three tries to leave Kandahar because the plane C-17 kept having mechanical problems once in mid air...i told him don't tell his mom that.
I'll have more info once he settles in his new hot home.
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I don't know his company, just now he just finished Army boot camp from Ft Leonard Wood just two months ago or so and spent a couple of months at Ft Lewis, Washington.
Such a wonderful place.
He said it took him three tries to leave Kandahar because the plane C-17 kept having mechanical problems once in mid air..
Sounds about right. I once pointed to a leaking hydraulic line in a helo to the crew and they told me it was fine. He said to tell him when it stopped leaking because that means there isnt any more fluid.