A Day at the Races

We spent most of Saturday at the races.  No, it was not Ascot or even Churchill Downs, but Texas Motor Speedway for a NASCAR race and in a luxury suite no less!!  We saw some qualifying runs, practice runs, and the main event of the day, the My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR race.  Admittedly this was in the xfinity series of NASCAR, which is essentially the "minor leagues" of NASCAR.  The regular NASCAR race was Sunday afternoon and the truck race was Friday night.  However, the xfinity series was just fine with us because we are not NASCAR fans anyway.  It was just fun being there and taking in everything.

What??!!  You went to a NASCAR race??!! As I related our plans to other folks before our adventure, people tended to fall into two camps, either (1) Wow, that is awesome, or (2) Umm, I won't insult you by saying it out loud but you could not pay me to do that.  Given that we are not even NASCAR fans, how did we end up there?  Well, of course there is a back story, if only a minor one.

We are longtime Dallas Morning News subscribers.  DMN contacted the Frog, whose name is on the subscription, and gave him the opportunity to enter a drawing open to subscribers with a variety of different prizes.  Lo and behold we won two tickets in the Dallas Morning News' luxury suite to the My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR race on Saturday, March 30. Also included was VIP parking, continental breakfast (or at least sweet rolls) and lunch.  It was wonderful.  We really had a great time. 

Small crowd.  Texas Motor Speedway is a 1500 acre speedway located in very far north Fort Worth.  In fact, it is so far north it is in Denton County.  Based on an estimated capacity of over 181,000 fans, it is the second largest sporting venue (based on capacity) in the U.S.  However, due to the horrible weather, the crowd on Saturday was very small.

Front straightaway with pit row to the right as seen from our seats.  Although this was before the race, it was obvious the crowd was going to be tiny.

A blue norther had blown in that morning.  It was COLD and overcast made even worse by an incredibly strong north wind.  I don't know about sustained winds, which were significant, but the weather person on TV later said the gusts were to 40 mph.  Under normal conditions it would have been fun to explore the many vendor booths set up outside, but it was just too cold and windy. Thank goodness for being in a suite!

Great views of everything.  According to NASCAR it is a 1.5 mile quad-oval track, although IndyCar apparently thinks it is 1.44 miles...whatever.

We were on the first of two levels of suites very near exit 6 on the map above.  They were great seats near the end of the front straightaway just before turn 1.  We could easily see the entire track and the large video screen, "Big Hoss", on the other side of the track.  We were amazed at how much easier it was to follow the race compared to watching on TV.  There was also tv coverage in the suite, although we could not see the monitors very well since we chose seats all the way in the front.

Some of the cars during practice for Sunday's race.  Big Hoss is on the right.  Turns 3 and 4 are in the distance.  Pit row is in the center, with the main straightaway on the left.

Turn 1 and turn 2 (south end) during practice.

It was amazing how fast the cars moved, especially during the qualifying rounds.  According to the display on Big Hoss, the top qualifiers were all going in excess of 190 mph.

I was impressed with the speeds especially since these were xfinity Series cars, which according to someone sitting behind us have smaller engines and 200 hp less than the regular NASCAR cars.

One of the other major differences to seeing the race on tv was the color of the cars.  It was obvious how useful that was to identifying them from a distance.

For that matter, there was color everywhere despite the drab, gray day.

All the pit crews lined up for the singing of the national anthem.

Some of the different track support personnel (ambulance drivers, wrecker drivers, etc.)

 

It was also interesting to see all of the many different support vehicles, some of which I still don't understand.  One vehicle looked like it had a large magnet on the back, but I somehow missed getting a decent pic.  All of these services and more had to be in the right place at the right time and people fed since it was an all day event.  The logistics in putting on this type of event is staggering.

Handing out box lunches to the support personnel in the downtime between practice runs and start of the race.

If the weather would have been better, people watching would have been interesting.  At the very least, we saw the ferris wheel and some unusual vendor trucks.

The ferris wheel looks small from here, but is actually quite large.

Of course the main attraction was the race itself.  Car number 20, driven by Christopher Bell had the pole position and led most of the race.  Shown below is one of his pit stops.  Note in particular how fast each of the five lug nuts on each wheel is loosened and tightened, one "jab" each.

There were the smattering of various accidents.  For many it was a matter of pulling loose parts off the car and sending the driver on his way.

Pulling parts off the car and out of the tire well before going back on the track.

Checking things out after an altercation with another car.  Note the tire marks on the side of the car.

Of course some wrecks required towing the cars away, even as the other cars kept circling under yellow.

Support vehicles around the damaged 07 car

Car #74 passes on the high side as the wrecker attaches to the wrecked car.

The restart after a yellow was always exciting, with much maneuvering for position.

The final victor was Kyle Busch, who was actually a "major league" driver who was running in the xfinity series.  He had also won the truck race the night before.

Number 18 doing circles after winning the race.

However, I have to point out that #74 was the Frog's favorite car.  He had many more pit stops than most of the rest of the field and he was noticeably slower which meant he kept getting lapped, but he was still running at the end!

Our favorite car because he was at the back and kept getting lapped.

As I hope you can tell, we had fun and learned quite a bit about NASCAR racing that was largely unknown to us before.  Thank you Dallas Morning News!

Race Results per ESPN:
POS	DRIVER	CAR	MANUFACTURER	LAPS	START	LED	PTS	BONUS	PENALTY
1	Kyle Busch	18	Toyota	200	5	33	0	0	0
2	Tyler Reddick	2	Chevrolet	200	3	19	48	13	0
3	Christopher Bell	20	Toyota	200	1	127	50	16	0
4	Chase Briscoe	98	Ford	200	15	0	33	0	0
4	Chase Briscoe	98	Ford	200	15	0	33	0	0
5	Jeb Burton	8	Chevrolet	200	6	0	36	4	0
6	Michael Annett	1	Chevrolet	200	13	0	31	0	0
7	Justin Haley	11	Chevrolet	200	11	0	32	2	0
8	Jeffrey Earnhardt	81	Toyota	200	14	0	29	0	0
9	John Hunter Nemechek	23	Chevrolet	200	8	0	30	2	0
10	Ryan Sieg	39	Chevrolet	200	19	8	37	10	0
11	Austin Cindric	22	Ford	200	9	0	30	4	0
12	Justin Allgaier	7	Chevrolet	200	4	0	33	8	0
13	Noah Gragson	9	Chevrolet	200	16	13	30	6	0
14	Josh Williams	36	Chevrolet	200	22	0	23	0	0
15	Ronnie Bassett Jr.	90	Chevrolet	199	23	0	22	0	0
16	Ross Chastain	4	Chevrolet	199	18	0	30	9	0
17	Brandon Brown	86	Chevrolet	199	21	0	20	0	0
18	Kaz Grala	21	Chevrolet	198	12	0	19	0	0
19	Tommy Joe Martins	99	Toyota	198	24	0	18	0	0
20	David Starr	52	Chevrolet	198	31	0	17	0	0
21	Gray Gaulding	08	Chevrolet	198	20	0	0	0	0
22	Stephen Leicht	01	Chevrolet	198	30	0	15	0	0
23	Chad Finchum	42	Toyota	197	35	0	14	0	0
24	Joey Gase	35	Toyota	196	37	0	13	0	0
25	Vinnie Miller	78	Chevrolet	196	34	0	12	0	0
26	Jeremy Clements	51	Chevrolet	196	17	0	11	0	0
27	Matt Mills	5	Chevrolet	194	29	0	10	0	0
28	Tyler Hill	66	Toyota	191	33	0	0	0	0
29	Mike Harmon	74	Chevrolet	189	36	0	8	0	0
30	Josh Bilicki	93	Chevrolet	184	26	0	7	0	0
31	Garrett Smithley	0	Chevrolet	160	38	0	6	0	0
32	B.J. McLeod	15	Chevrolet	138	28	0	5	0	0
33	Brandon Jones	19	Toyota	133	2	0	11	7	0
34	Cole Custer	00	Ford	132	7	0	13	10	0
35	Ray Black Jr.	07	Chevrolet	79	25	0	2	0	0
36	Brad Keselowski	12	Ford	68	10	0	0	0	0
37	Timmy Hill	13	Toyota	20	32	0	1	0	0
38	Jeff Green	38	Chevrolet	16	27	0	1	0	0