Richmond experience on Sprint's dime

I had the opportunity to go to my first NASCAR Sprint Cup series race since 2003, when it was still the Winston Cup Series, and my sixth overall, on the dime of Sprint on Sunday, September 7, 2008, at Richmond International Raceway. The race was supposed to be Saturday night, and since my mother had won the two tickets, she was going to take my father. With the advance postponement due to Tropical Storm Hanna, my mother was unable to make it herself, so I took my father to his first race.
[caption id="attachment_1528" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Centerpiece at Sprint Hospitality area"][/caption]

The Sprint hospitality area had a variety of food, from BBQ to chilidogs to several varieties of chicken, a variety of deserts, and tubs of iced down drinks, from water to Coke products to several beer varieties. The number of tables was absolutely one of the biggest in the whole Capital One hospitality complex, which included other corporate sponsors such as UPS, Toyota, AAA, Chevrolet, Home Depot, AT&T and more. Our walk to get to the Sprint area took us right by the Home Depot one, where Joe Gibbs himself was speaking live as we passed. We didn't linger long, but it was certainly clear that he was more in his element there than he had been the Thursday before in St. Paul at the RNC. The sheer number of tables at the Sprint area made me wonder if they allowed all Sprint customers in, since their number of free-ticket packages was supposedly only 50 sets of 2. As one entered, they gave a wristband so they could keep track of who was allowed in, and marked it off when they gave out the goodies - the seat cushion that doubles as a mini-tote, and the Sprint Cup Series hat - and the raffle ticket, to be pulled just after noon. They had a DJ that was playing a mix of country and rock songs, and when it finally became time for the raffle, turned out that there were several shirt/hat combos that were autographed by Jamie McMurray, with the higher level prizes being a ride-along in a racecar and the Richard Petty experience. We didn't win.
[caption id="attachment_1541" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="JR Motorsports trailer in the midway"][/caption]
On the way to our seats, we walked right through the midway. On race weekends, it's full of souvenir trailers and sponsor exhibits - this time examples were AAA, the Army, DLP, Dollar General, Sprint and Home Depot. Right outside the hospitality area were several showcars, including the #11 Fedex and #96 DLP Toyotas. The souvenir area has many trailers, most devoted exclusively to a single driver/sponsor. Most only have one, but the more popular drivers, such as Dale Jr. or Jeff Gordon, may have two or three. I didn't think to get a photo of the selling side of the trailers - most have two doors that open to an awning on one side of the trailer, with glass enclosures forming the counter, usually containing small items such as decals or 1/64 cars, while the space behind the counter on the wall will be

[caption id="attachment_1529" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Flags at RIR"][/caption]

All told, the face value of the tickets were $95 each. The cost of renting the Sprint FanView Scanners, $50 each, was gratis. Then throw in the food and giveaways at the hospitality area, and it amounted to at least $350 - the last race we had attended in person was at the same track in September 2003, when the cost per ticket was $85. The cost of the package may have been higher, when one considers the weather delay removed the pit tour elements and the post-race Chase celebration, as the track had to be cleared for Friday's postponed Nationwide series race to be able to be run, and that crowd to be able to come back into the track, as they were separately ticket events.
[caption id="attachment_1533" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dale Jr. pits for the first time during the competition caution"][/caption][caption id="attachment_1534" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kevin Harvick pits during the 2nd caution"][/caption]
As for the race itself, the early part of the race was a duel between Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., while both faded a bit at the end, which featured a duel between Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson, who raced side by side for most of the final 10 laps before Johnson emerged with the win. Full results here.
[caption id="attachment_1539" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Sprint FanView receiver"][/caption]
The FanView scanners are a welcome improvement on the old time scanners, by being preprogrammed for individual driver frequencies, having instant scoring stats at the ready, from the overall running order, to individualized driver stats, something that is normally difficult to follow at a live race. Richmond in particular has a scoring pylon that only shows the car numbers for the top 7 positions. The FanView Scanners were difficult to read the screen in the sunlight, but I suspect they would have been perfect had it been an evening race as originally scheduled. But they did have access to the DirecTV HotPass channels, which certainly made for scanning Dale Jr's audio much easier. What I didn't realize until after the race was over was that my father didn't have any audio working on his, as all he got with the headphones was the ear protection they provide.

[caption id="attachment_1531" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Postrace, Johnson begins to celebrate"][/caption]

Getting out of the parking lot was another story. The nightmare we experienced in Dover in June 2002 repeated itself, only not quite as bad. The Dover nightmare took three hours to get out of the parking lot. This time, it took over 90 minutes to even move. Some of this was complication for some incoming traffic for the postponed Nationwide series race, but most was for lack of traffic direction that existed as the parking lots were being filled. Eventually, the logjam was broken when several started trying to aim for Gate 6 instead of the Gate 4 direction.