Preparation

Okay, so the reason I went on this trip was that a coworker had purchased four passes for the weekend without having anyone to use two of them. I decided it would be a good time to connect with my brother, but when I called to ask, he wanted to bring his wife as well, so we bought one more ticket for the weekend. As to travel and accommodations, since I was not the one originating the trip, I just let Craig make all the arrangements. We would fly on Friday to Atlanta, get a hotel in Atlanta to save money, travel to Talladega both days for the race events and fly back to Phoenix on Monday. It was all very well planned to make sure nothing could go wrong.

Day 1: Travel to Atlanta

So we have all day to get there, so when are we flying? That's right, 6AM. Fine, but to get on the plane by 6:00, we wanted to be in the terminal by 5:15. Since we were parking in long term parking which requires a bus ride to the terminal, we wanted to get to the parking lot by 4:45. Craig lives in Avondale, so we budgeted time to get there, so we wanted to leave his house at 4:15. To make sure we had time to load his car, I wanted to arrive by 4:00. This meant leaving my house by 3:30. Since I shoot pool on Thursday night and don't arrive home until about 1:00, I decided to just not go to bed. So, at 3:30, I hit the road. At precisely 4:00, I rang Craig's doorbell. It was at that very moment that I remembered that the race tickets were still on my kitchen counter. I told Craig to go on without me and that I'd meet him at the airport.

I didn't panic. I calmly (though quickly) drove home, picked up the tickets, and made my way toward the airport. I arrived at the East Long Term lot at 5:15. The bus got me to the terminal by 5:30. I'm rushing to security, thankful that my bag can be carried on. I get to the front of the line and read the statement that I may be asked to remove my shoes. Knowing there is no metal in my shoes, I don't take them off. It turns out that when they use the word "may," they mean to use the word "will." I take my shoes off. I walk through the detector and set it off. I take off my belt. I walk through and set it off. It turns out that I'm so fat, my body brushes against the sides of the detector, and that's what's setting it off. Next, I have deal with the guy who x-rayed my bag. There's a problem. I have something that Homeland Security needs to eliminate to keep the skies safe. That's right, no toothpaste for me. So they take the toothpaste, give me my bag, and send me on my way. I quickly put my belt on and walk, in stockinged feet, to the gate. When I arrive, I ask if I have time to put on my shoes, and I'm assured that I do, so I put them on and board the plane. My co-travelers have not yet arrived. It turns out that they were held up checking their baggage and boarded the plane five minutes after I did.

The flight was uneventful, but also unrestful since, due to my size, I could not rest my head on anything. So much for sleeping on the flight. We arrived in Atlanta, picked up our luggage and made our way to the Budget rental building.

Craig had our path memorized. He said the hotel was "at the bottom of the airport" which I took to mean the south end. It reminded me of Vicini's line in "The Princess Bride" when he wants the boat to turn. Though he claims to be the smartest man ever, he yells "Veer left!" apparently unaware that boats veer to port or starboard, not left or right. Anyhow, we get on I-85 and head south, then we take the Riverdale exit and turn right. As we drive on Riverdale, Craig points to the right and says that our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express is there on the right. Sure enough, there is the Holiday Inn Express. What there isn't is a road leading to the Holiday Inn Express. We spend a half hour trying to make our way there, and eventually stumble upon it. We drive into the parking lot (it had one of those severe tire damage things to drive over as you enter to prevent you from getting out that way), and Craig takes a drive around the hotel to size it up. It looks nice enough, and we go to the checkin parking. As I'm handing the paperwork to Craig, I ask him why the paperwork says we're staying at the Best Western. He takes a look and informs us that he has printed the wrong page, because he had verified just yesterday that we were staying at the Holiday Inn Express.

Ten minutes after entering to check in, Craig emerges. The very helpful staff have given him directions to the Best Western. While he was inside, I come to the realization that I have a totally cool cell phone with web access, and more importantly, Google Maps installed. I plot the trip from the Holiday Inn Express to the Best Western, but since Google's directions did not match those of the Holiday Inn's front desk staff, Craig decided to ignore Google (after all, what do they know?). First step: exit the parking lot. The car moves toward the exit where we find a sign informing us that we won't be able to leave without the current gate code. We drive back to the front desk.

Armed with the exit code, we leave the Holiday Inn and attempt to follow the instructions given by the front desk staff, but we get lost again. This time, Craig decides to trust Google which directs us to the hotel properly. It turns out that had we turned left after getting off the freeway, the hotel would have been right in front of us.

By now, It's nearly 3PM (Noon in Phoenix), and we're hungry. Todd wants to find a Claim Jumper. I tell him I'm not against the idea, but aren't they kind of pricey even for a steak house? He doesn't think so, forcing me to hijack this story with another story.

One week earlier, Katie and I went out to eat with friends to, of all places, Claim Jumper. We open the menu to see the high prices that I know they charge (in their defense, the portions are quite large as well). I note that the filet mignon runs $35, but Katie wants to know how much the "Market Price" of the filet with lobster runs. I call over the waiter, "I need to let my daughter know how much she's worth to me. How much is the filet and lobster?" The waiter answers, "$55.99". "Sorry, Katie, you're not worth $56 to me."

The nearest Claim Jumper was 15 miles away. We found our way to a Longhorn Steakhouse. Wow! Is pricing in Georgia amazing compared to Arizona! I ordered the filet mignon and lobster for $25, and boy was it good! Craig offered to pay for the meal but soon realized that he had left his wallet in the hotel room. I paid for our first meal.

So it was back to the hotel to finally get some sleep. By now, it was well after 4:00, and we had nothing more to do until we were to leave for Talladega on Saturday. Just as we had done for the airport planning, we did the math from destination to origination. We wanted to take the pit tour promptly at 8:00 AM on Saturday, so we decided that we needed to arrive at the speedway by 7:00 AM to find a parking place. Since Talladega is 110 miles from our hotel, we needed to budget two hours for travel, but since we wanted to stop at a Waffle House on the way, we decided to increase that to three hours. We would leave the hotel at 4:00. I set my alarm for 3:30 AM.

I went to bed at 5:00, but I couldn't sleep throughout the night and awoke briefly at around 10:00. I watched "Las Vegas" then caught some SportsCenter on ESPN. Notably, I wanted to see some of the Diamondbacks/Cubs series being carried on TBS, but that station was not available in our hotel room...in Atlanta. ESPN did a report on the Talladega race. Apparently, NASCAR officials had decided it might be fun to recreate the story line from "Talladega Nights," and for this weekend, the field would be welcoming a new driver. It was someone who had never driven in any NASCAR event but was being allowed to debut at Talladega thanks to his experience as a Formula One champion. Jacques Villeneuve would be driving the powder blue UNICEF car (#27). The NASCAR regulars were not happy about this indicating that perhaps he should have been introduced to shorter tracks before graduating to a SuperSpeedway as other drivers are required. I tucked that little snippet away to revisit the next day when I met my brother. Once again, I fell asleep to to awaken until the alarm forced the issue.

Day 2: Mountain Dew 250 (Truck Event)

So, 3:30 arrived, and my alarm returned me to the conscious world. I got up, took a shower, got dressed, put my camera around my neck, got my tickets for the race, and went next door to join the others for the trip to Talladega. I knocked. I waited. I knocked louder. A very groggy Craig opened the door, wearing his underwear only (boy, did I ever want to see that), and let me know that they were just getting up. You see, the alarm clock has this indicator for "PM." But what if you think it means "AM"? So I waited a half hour for them to be ready.

At 4:00, we hit the road, traveling west from Atlanta (we passed Six Flags Georgia on the way, and I wanted to go there). Shortly after we passed into Alabama, we stopped at a local Waffle House. A little side note here: being from Arizona and having visited Manhattan, I know that there are places where Starbucks show up on every corner. What I never expected was a Waffle House on every corner. And while the place has a reputation for being a greasy spoon, I was fascinated by the methods they used to communicate (hints on a plate awaiting food), and the waffles were fantastic! Being relatively quick eaters, we made up the time lost due to oversleeping and got back on the road.

Little known fact: okay, it was only "little known" to our little group: Georgia and Alabama are not in the same time zone. We arrived at the track at 6:00. It was still dark out, so we drove the dirt roads that surround the track just wishing they had signs to direct us. They did have some signs, but they weren't very clear, and we soon found ourselves lost in the area. After finding the correct spot, we parked and waited for 8:00 to come.

When the pavillion opened, we moved directly to the pit tour. Okay, I'm not much of a NASCAR fan, but the tour was fun. I enjoyed taking photos of ourselves on the finish line as well as the photos we took of the cars being charged for qualifying. It was during this period that I revealed to my brother that I knew an obscure story about the race, that being the tale of the powder blue UNICEF car. In fact, as we toured the pits, I noticed his car and pointed it out to my brother, sharing my story along the way. Somehow, he took that to mean that I was a Villeneuve fan. Jacques was my driver (apparently, everyone has a favorite driver). There would be no end to the ribbing for my choice of the wrong driver after that.

After spending time on in the pits, we returned to the hospitality tent where we were all given Talladega hats and went in to enjoy the meal before the race. Okay, maybe the snacks before the race. Here's the deal...if you wanted the meal, you had to skip out on the qualifiers for the Nextel Cup race. You couldn't do both. But we enjoyed the chicken wings and seven layer dip while they lasted.

So now it was time to go into the stands to enjoy the day's official activities. First came the process of getting to our seats. Talladega SuperSpeedway reminds me of Sun Devil Stadium. It has troughs for the men's room and the sun overhead all day long. In any event, we made our way to our section (Tri-Oval, Section Q) and walked up the ramp to the seating. When you get to the top of the ramp, you're at row 1. Walk up two steps and you're at row 2. Walk up two more steps and you're at row 3. Walk up two more and you're at row 4. Another couple gets you to row 5. Two more, and you're at row 6. When we got to row 63, I vowed that I would not leave that seat until the day was done. After all, how could I need to? I had a 20 ounce bottle of water, and the activities would be done in five short hours.

The first activity would be the qualifier for the Sunday race. If you're not a NASCAR fan, let me fill you in as best I can. The race has 43 slots of which, 35 are promised to the 35 teams with the most points heading into the race (I'm unsure of how this math works since there appeared to only be seven at large entries). So for the majority of the drivers, qualifying merely determines starting position, not eligibility. For all of the drivers, qualifying consisted of a single lap to get up to speed followed by two laps of which the better time of the two was considered for qualifying. Apparently, there are modifications that can improve a car for qualifying which are not necessarily good for the endurance race. As such, the seven extra spots quickly became the starting front seven, but those drivers could be expected to finish in less than stellar positions. Each qualifier spent about three minutes doing it all. And there were 51 drivers. Oh, what fun that was.

Once that 2.5 hour ordeal was over, it was time to set up the track for the Mountain Dew 250 truck race. There were introductions, the national anthem, and I found it ironic that the crowd enjoyed a pre-race prayer before the event where they would be getting drunk, yelling obscenities and hoping that they get to see a beauty of a crash, the more damage the better. Curious, also, was the cheer that went up after the prayer as if to say, "Eat that Al-Qaeda! Our god is better than your god!"

So finally, the race was underway. Yes, these were trucks but they may as well have been cars. After a very long time, there was an engine blowout here, a tire blown there, but overall it was an uneventful race (the crowd was very unhappy). And when Villeneuve was eliminated, my brother patted me on the back to console me. I had to remind him that I did not care a bit for any of the drivers.

As the race was going on, I realized that I needed more water, and Talladega does not have vendors walking the stands to sell anything. If you want it, you have to get it yourself. I tried to wait for someone else to go so I could just add a water request, but no one left at all. Finally, I could take it no more. I left my seat to make the 124 step walk down to the concession stands. Upon getting up, my brother asked me to get him a beer, and his wife asked me to bring her a bottled water. So I made the hike, took advantage of bathroom break, bought the provisions (for $5, you can buy a plastic mini-bucket of ice to keep your stuff cold) and embarked on the 124 step climb back to my seat. I need to get more exercise.

So the race finished. Guess who won. You know, I could look it up, but I won't because I just don't care.

After leaving the track, we drove back to Atlanta to sleep for the night, but as we approached the city, we realized that we wanted a meal before settling down for the night. It was at this point that I met the inner racists in my group. A number of exits with promising restaurants were skipped for being primarily black neighborhoods (no, my companions did not use the word "black"). We ate at a local Shoney's and headed back to the hotel.

Planning for Sunday involved the same backward counting for the timing, but this time, we knew about the time difference, and we knew we'd be faster at the Waffle House.

Day 3: UAW/Ford 500

I was ready to go at 5:30. I knocked on their door. They woke up. We left at 5:45.

We stopped again at the Waffle House once into Alabama, and I've got to say, they really have those waffles down. I have never had such a good waffle.

As we drove to the track, I amused myself in an alternate way. My companions tended to use a particular four letter word that begins with the letter 'F'. I don't think I'm a prude, mind you, but I find it tiring to listen to people who use foul language too much. It makes me wonder about their intelligence. There came a point where I stopped listening to the thoughts being presented by the two of them and concentrated on comparing the instances of that 'F' word to the number of sentences in their speech. The ratio was 1:1. Oh, there were sentences with none, but there were just as many where the word appeared twice. Note to people who talk to me: I don't care if you use expletives in your speech, but if you throw them around like other people mutter "uh" between words, you just look stupid.

We arrived at a much more reasonable hour this time. Sure, traffic was heavier, but we were still way early, so the traffic was not unbearable. We went to the hospitality tent again, but this time, I decided to pass on the pit tour. It wasn't that interesting to me the day before, so how great would it be today. As it turned out, I missed out on getting a picture taken in the Winner's Circle. C'est la vie. While in the tent, the Pepsi drivers (Busch and Gordon) came to speak to us, and this was mildly amusing. We made a number of attempts to get a picture taken with Jeff Gordon and Arnie in the shot together, but the results were weak at best.

Interspersed with this, food was being served in the tent. The selection was better the second day, but not much better (not $200 better). Oh, well. We had lunch then made our way to the grandstands for the race.

This time, I made sure I went up with plenty of water. Once I climbed those stairs, I wasn't coming down until I had to. The day was punctuated by the induction of the Wonder Bread car into the Talladega Hall of Fame (Ricky Bobby's car in Talladega Nights). They prayed to the most kickin' god on the planet again and let up a big cheer to let Al-Qaeda know who's boss. The drivers were introduced, the National Anthem was sung, and the Air Force sent some jets overhead in formation. It was quite inspiring.

Finally the race began. I pulled my web enabled phone from my pocket and spent the next two hours getting updates to follow the play of the Cardinals against the Rams. Once that game was over, however, the only thing I had to keep track of was the race.

Let me tell you about Talladega. It's a 2.5 mile track, and as a restrictor plate race using the "Car of Tomorrow" for the first time, no one was passing much. Sure, there was an occasional tire blowout that forced a yellow flag, but there were entire extended periods when no one changed position. It was just a long conga line going around in circles. Late in the race, Junior's engine blew out eliminating him and causing about 10% of the crowd to leave. And Jeff Gordon, after bringing up the rear for 179 of the 188 laps, made his move to the front to win the race. Afterward, he would comment that this was the first time he had ever yawned during a race.

As the race ended, my brother nudged me and asked if I get it now. Sadly, no. I still don't get it. As an environmentalist (if even a poor one), the amount of fuel burned frustrated me, and I just couldn't bring myself to care who won. I tried to equate it to my love of professional football. But even there, I found myself wondering what happens when someone's favorite driver stops racing. Clearly, those fans just move on to another driver, so that devotion is relatively short lived. I just don't know.

After the race, we slowly made our way away from the track to return to Atlanta, but before leaving Alabama, we stopped at another Longhorn Steakhouse. As we entered, our hostess warned us that we would not be able to purchase any alcohol since the city we were in was dry on Sunday. No biggie, our group was dry every day. We again enjoyed a reasonably priced and wonderfully prepared steak dinner. We then returned to the hotel to sleep before our morning flight.

Day 4: The Flight Home

So we made our way back to the airport and got in line for security. Wow, was that a long line. It took about an hour to get through the line, but once we made it to the front, it was clear that the security staff were keeping people moving, there were just too many people to move. As we entered the terminal, Craig received an automated phone call from Delta warning us that our flight had been delayed for two hours. Perfect.

We went to the gate anyhow only to find that they had found another plane for us, and we would be leaving on time. Boy, I sure hope no one believed their phone call. Still, it was quite a while until flight time, so we went to the On the Border restaurant in the terminal for some breakfast. The meal was tasty enough, but boy was our server slow. Anyhow, we enjoyed our meal and moved on to the gate to await boarding.

Since I'm rather large, I went to the counter to ask if there were any spots on the plane with an extra empty seat. To his credit, the attendant came through, and for the flight home, I had a window seat with an empty seat next to me. Oh, how comfy. And so we flew home without incident. The in flight movie was the latest Harry Potter film, and since I haven't seen any of them yet, I felt it important to skip this one until I catch up. I slept, read and listened to music. And finally we were home.

Epilogue

I'm not sure that I ever want to see a NASCAR event again. I certainly don't wish to pay $800 for the privelege, but spending the weekend with my brother was a nice plus. Since this has taken until almost Christmas to finish writing, I now have the visit of my sister to compare with it, and weekends with Arnie tend to be less stressful. Hope you've enjoyed and learned from this. Remember: save your money.