NASCAR Trip

I went to Charlotte/Concord, NC today to tour and look at NASCAR related sports facilities.

As a sports fan, and as someone who hopes to work in sports, it's important to take advantage of looking at how other sports and organizations set things up and work.  You get new ideas from new experiences.

Plus I like NASCAR and like Hendrick Motorsports and want to see their race shop.

At Hendrick I got to see the garages.  There are mechanics everywhere.  There are tools everywhere.  It smells like people are working on cars.

They are building new cars and working on old ones.  They have tools in position to be worked on.  Everything seemed relaxed in the shop, but people were working.  It was just amazing to see how big of a building is necessary to house a full time NASCAR team.  It was amazing to see how many people were in the background at the team shops.  It's a really big operation.  I didn't even get the chance to see where they build the engines.  How I wish I got to see that.

There is nothing like hearing a race engine at 8,000 RPM's.  It gets you hooked.  The sound of the cars can just get you hooked.

The race shop was partly blocked off, so I couldn't see everything, and I probably didn't stop and observe as much as I should, but it was really awesome and impressive to see everything.  There must have been 15 $200,000 cars in the garage.

The complex for Hendrick feature two huge garages.  One for the 5 and 24 team and the other for the 48 and 88 team.  The owner also had his own personal building for stuff, including what I believe is a 120 car collection.

Apparently there is a warehouse for Hendrick Motorsports with old cars that it can lend out for museums somewhere as well.    

Hendrick also had a huge building for it's racing engines.  I'm sure they build the engines their by hand, and also take apart all engines from races to look for wear.  I wish that was open to the public. 

The team store and museum was pretty cool as well.  I got to sit in a mock race car seat.  NASCAR Stock Cars do not have a door, so you have to unhook the steering wheel and then go through the window to sit in a race car seat.  Getting in was difficult, but it wasn't as bad as getting out.  Getting out was so hard because you are basically in a cocoon as a driver.  The seat was quite comfortable, but you can't freaking move in your seat.  You are strapped in and you are not moving.  There is a piece of padding that made it sort of awkward for me to get out.  Drivers make it look easy, and it is with experience, but for my first time getting in a race seat, it was difficult. 

The shop and museum and whole complex had trophies and race suits everywhere.  There were race cars everywhere as well. 

Every imaginable piece of team apparel was for sale as well. They also had unique things like race used tires and used sheet metal.  They are pretty cool things for a game room, or sports memorabilia collection, or if you need a conversation piece at the office.

So I bought something that a future women in my life will try desperately to get me to get rid of, (and will not succeed).  I bought a used race tire.  The tire had a marking that said "RF-9" which means it's the Right Front tire, and the ninth set of tires.  The tire didn't look that worn, and I think I know why.  I know what car and race it came from, but we won't divulge that info.  I think it's a really cool.

Cars can also have markings where they check for tire wear.  They showed me a tire that had 5 numbers from 76-82 along wear indicators.  The numbers were close together which meant that the team had a good set-up.  That is pretty cool. 

I thought about getting a different tire that was more worn, and chewed up, but decided that the one I got, with less wear, was more meaningful.  

I also visited Charlotte Motor Speedway briefly.  It's a massive sports facility.  It's just massive.  It's bigger than you can imagine.  It was a nice facility, although I noticed some interesting things, such as "condominiums" for race fans to watch a race from and a "smoking lounge."  I guess you can really only find a smoking lounge in NASCAR (or maybe bowling, or cigar smoking in golf).  I would never go to that place and think it's strange to have that, but as someone who doesn't smoke and doesn't understand why anyone would, it's not meant for me.  (Thought it was strange Atlanta Airport had smoking lounges as well)

The facility had a LARGE screen for fans to watch the race from along the back straightaway.  It looked like Charlotte had great views from most seats.  Most seats also appeared to have chair backs which surprised me.  There wasn't much activity at the track, especially on a Wednesday, but the gift shop was open and they were giving tours. A challenge for a sport facility is to try to get money out of it when they aren't actually racing.  You have to figure out how to make this great facility more useful.  You don't want it to sit empty for all but two weekends a year. 

The Charlotte racing complex also had a dirt track across the street from the track along with a drag strip.

I had fun on my trip to Charlotte/Concord and I am glad I got to experience the things that I did.  New ideas come from new experiences.