As many of you know, I was born in Mexico.  Therefore,  I’m obligated to love auto racing. Them’s the rules. You may or may not also know that I love me some NASCAR.  Unfortunately,  I’ve never been to a live race.  Until this weekend.

I have a buddy at work that is a HUGE NASCAR guy.  Plus,  he’s connected.  He knows a lot of the drivers and media guys. Over the last two years,  I’ve been telling him I’d go to a race with him and one thing or another has happened and I haven’t been able to join him.  This was finally the year.

This weekend,  the NASCAR traveling circus stopped at Auto Club Speedway in lovely Fontana (or Fontucky to Southern Californians). My favorite driver is Kyle Busch.  This is not a popular fact.  Even though Kyle won the 2015 championship in a dream-come-true scenario, he is still not well-liked.

Many times,  Kyle runs both the main race (Cup series) on Sunday and the lower-level X-finity series race on Saturday. I didn’t know if he was going to do that this weekend and there was a chance of rain on Saturday,  so I decided to go Sunday. I managed to corral two of my friends that are car guys to go with me. No, surprisingly,  they are not Mexican,  but white.  They fit right in.

My NASCAR buddy from work usually goes for the whole weekend and gets Hot Passes to get into the pits.  This weekend,  though,  he was only going Sunday.  This worked out great as we would,  theoretically,  be able to meet up.

One of my friends recently picked up a very rare Australian-made Chevy SS with a manual transmission. It’s really a Holden VF Commodore. A 415 HP V8 Commodore.

He and our other friend picked me up in that beast and we did the quick 35 minute drive east.

The first thing that struck me was how well-organized the traffic flow was. Law enforcement was very present in case dipshits wanted to pretend they have numbers on the side of their cars. Getting into the parking area was a breeze. Also, general parking was free.  Either that or we totally missed the person taking money.  I really do think it was free,  though.

We didn’t have any tickets,  so we just headed towards the ticket window and asked what they had.  Opposite to field sport stadiums,  the cheapest tickets are lower and closer to the track.  The reasons for that are twofold: 1) The lower you are,  the less you can see of the entire track,  and 2) It is FUCKING LOUD!!

Allow me to demonstrate:

We splurged and got $65 seats in row 19 off Turn 4.  Top seats were over a hundred and the cheapest seats were $45, so this was a decent compromise.  One thing that my NASCAR buddy told me to get and I did was the scanner/headphone package with Fanvision.  Kids, let me tell you one thing:  Roger Goodell is a National Disgrace.  One of my buddies mentioned that they should do this at football games.  They ABSOLUTELY FUCKING SHOULD!

To those of you that don’t know, this is a Fanvision device with headphones:

You can rent it at the track, like we did, or if you go to lots of races (like my buddy does), you can buy it and get a subscription for all the tracks.  You can also split the signal so that you can hook up two headphones to it like in the picture below, which is what we did:

It works essentially like a Closed Circuit broadcasting device in that it only works at the track.  What you get, however, is incredible:

I was glued to it almost the entire race.  I knew at all points what the standings were and where my favorite driver (or drivers, you can pick up to 3) was in the race.  You can also, and this was my favorite part by far, listen to the team radios.  Wait, actually my favorite favorite part was that the headphones were so good that they shut down the track noise and you could hear really well what the drivers, the crew chiefs, and their spotters were saying.

That device brought the race experience to a whole other level that I had never thought possible.  It was really the best of both worlds:  I was just as informed as if I was watching the TV broadcast (arguably more since I could and did focus only on the driver I was interested in) and I still got the feel, the smell, and the sound of being at the actual track.  Seriously, this product is perfect for the NFL but Goodell is too much of a dipshit to get it.

Here is the view from our seats of the grandstands and pit lane:

I think the track was pretty close to full.  I’d say maybe 85-90%?  That’s still pretty good for as humungous a place as this is.  Auto Club Speedway is a 2 mile track, so it’s a long way around.  Here is the way the cars looked as they headed to the start:

And here is a picture where I think I got Kyle passing by me:

He was driving the green and white #18 Interstate Batteries car instead of the usual M&Ms car.  As for the race itself, Kyle finished 8th after a solid but slightly frustrating day.  Due to some excellent pit strategy, Kyle managed to get in front with less than 30 laps to go.  A rash of late yellow flags (cautions), however, changed the strategy.  At the end, Kyle got stuck behind other drivers on older tires and, to quote what he said in the radio, “they are driving like a bunch of fucking idiots”.  Or something to that effect.  It was really funny.

His car was way better in long runs and he was consistently in the top 10, but the car was not as good in short runs and in traffic, which unfortunately was how the race would end.  The race went to Overtime (Green-White-Checkered) and Kyle Larson, deservedly, won.  He really had the best car all day and it was nice that he was rewarded.

My main takeaways from the day:

1- People were fun, friendly, and nice.

2- I was never once bored.  I’ve fallen asleep watching races on TV, but there was always something to see on the track.  Also, the track loudspeakers were broadcasting the radio feed, so one could know exactly what was going on even if they were outside getting food/beer.

3- As always, Fox and NBC suck at televising sports.

4- Damn, that was loud.  Not as loud as that one time I went to the NHRA Winternationals, but still…

5- Food options were plentiful and cheap compared to NFL/MLB stadiums.  Beers were $8 and food was in the $8-12 range.  I had a loaded steak with fries plate that was curly fries topped with steak, grilled onions, and nacho cheese.  Yeah.

6- Camping on the infield looks like it is a LOT of fun.

7- Though we were there for over 4 hours, the day really flew by.

I will definitely be back at this track next spring and I will probably now make plans to go to either the Vegas or Phoenix races.  It was a seriously good time and, as one of my friends noticed, it is a friendly family atmosphere.  People were drinking, but no one was falling-down drunk and everyone was there to have a good time.  If you’ve ever partied with rednecks, and I have, you know what that’s like.

If you go, and I hope you do, by all means get the Fanvision package.  It’s about the same price as our tickets were, but it is totally fucking worth it. Incidentally, I texted my NASCAR friend a few times, but his seats were way on the other side of the track and we didn’t meet up.  Maybe next time.  At least, I can proudly show him my ticket to prove that I finally went to the track.

One more thing before I go: Can I ask y’all a question?  Is the black top with blue jeans thing a national thing or just a Southern California thing?  I gotta tell you, it’s a good look…