The Brickyard Experience

Bryan and I chose to go to the Brickyard 400 this year. We try to go to at least one race a year and have managed to do so for 4 out of the last 6 years. The race didn't start until 2 so we drove up to Indianapolis yesterday morning. When we were about a mile and half away from the track we decided we should park and walk the rest of the way to the track. For those of you that have not been to the Brickyard, there is not really a parking lot because it is in the middle of a neighborhood so people allow spectators to park in their yards for a pretty penny. We paid $20 for our spot a mile and a half away. The closer you got to the track the higher the price. Close to the track they were going for as much as $60.
Once we entered the gates, which was a joke because they didn't check anything and would allow you to bring basically anything in, we decided to walk around on the track and take a peek at Gasoline Alley and pit road. The Brickyard is basically a flat track so as I didn't realize I was walking on the track itself until I almost got hit by Jeff Gordan's car that was being pushed into its starting position.

Jeff Gordan's car that almost hit me.

Me on the track

Our seats were sort of a disappointment. We were next to a very nice covered grandstand and we could see all of the people that were sitting in the shade as we were being scorched under the blazing hot sun. I have to give Bryan credit, he thought we would be able to see the backstretch, turns 3 and 4, as well as pit road and the front stretch from our seats because we sat in a similar section at Talladega. We ended up only being able to see turn 4 and part of pit road and the front stretch so I was really envying those shaded seats. The experience is still unlike any other. Turns out the race was rather boring though thanks to Goodyear. The entire race was run in 10-12 lap segments with "competition cautions" in between because the tires would be completely worn out and would blow out after about 15 laps. Basically that means every 10-12 laps the cars had to go in to get new tires for safety reasons.

Our best view, turn 4

This was the grandstand that was next our stand, believe me those fans were much cooler than us.

At the end of the day we were glad we went and will be able to say we were at one of the races that will be discussed for years and years. We stayed the night south of Indianapolis and came back home today.
I am sorry to report that I did not eat my traditional turkey leg. I saw plenty of them, but decided I would go for a standard burger and fries for my lunch and ended up not being hungry enough to eat the huge hunk of meat that I usually ingest at a race.


We made a list of some of the strangest things we saw at the race, and to think, this list is shorter than it would have been after all of our previous races. Here they are:

• woman carrying her water bottle between her boobs
• guys that were a mile and a half away from the track and too drunk to walk at 10 a.m.
• men who took their t-shirts off but were so sunburned you couldn't tell they had their shirts off (horrible burn lines)
• hundreds, no thousands of people that had way too much body and way too little clothes
• people getting into verbal and even physical fights over the number that was on the other person's shirt, hat, tattoo, etc.
• tires that were completely worn out after only 15 laps :-(

This post had contributions from my loving husband, Bryan, just so you know.