NASCAR at Phoenix International Raceway | Part 1

For the past two years, Luke and I have been residing in a small suburb west of Phoenix called Avondale. The town is made up mostly of houses, schools, a Fry's Grocery Store and (more) houses. But if you travel just a few miles south heading toward the Estrella Mountains, you will run into Phoenix International Raceway (PIR). Two times a year (April and November) Luke and must plan our week around the NASCAR events. Not because we are attending, but we need to get around all the fans and participants. The streets are packed with team haulers, motor homes with massive grills strapped to the back go 30 mph and our when we walk through our favorite Fry's grocery store it makes us wonder if a hurricane is about to hit the desert. And when the race starts we can hear the engines and the fly overs from Luke Air Force Base shake the house (Why hello there, B-52!).

This year instead of fighting it, we went with it. We stopped off at the PIR business offices a couple weeks ago and picked up some cheap tickets to the race. It would have been a shame if we never went to a race that was less than 5 miles from our house.

Luke had never been to a NASCAR race, which I found odd since he lived in North Carolina. I had been to a few races: a Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis and two spring races in Bristol, TN. I knew that if Luke didn't care for the race, he would enjoy watching crazy rednecks in their natural habitat ;)

Luke at the entrance of Phoenix International Raceway

Jimmy Johnson's trophy for the past 4 years.

The race in April is a night race, so we got to the track around noon on Saturday. Thanks to our good friend and co-worker, Chris, we were able to get to the track fast. He had a media pass/amazing parking spot inside the track. Luke and I hopped out right before security got to us, ahha! We made our way into the track and we were engulfed with hard-core NASCAR fans. And boobs. Every sponsorship booth came with two skimpy-clothed blond chicks. The fans got a kick out of handing their baby boys over to them to take a picture...the girls had NO IDEA how to hold a baby...wish I took a picture! :)

We played some games and won some prizes: a couple beer cozies, snacks and beer openers. All items any NASCAR fan wouldn't have already, but look the heck out if any of those items were thrown at you. Chances are a drunk dude with a full glass of beer will try to jump you to get that cozie. That happened to me. Twice. It's all part of the NASCAR experience, I guess.

A free photo with "Kyle Busch." Luke noticed that they photoshopped his sunglasses. Heellllooo, get your light sources correct! :)

While we were walking around, we happened to run into some drivers. Greg Biffle was doing a little Q&A with a NASCAR radio show, Juan Pablo Montoya had a Q&A, as well at the Chevy tent, Ryan Newman (who ended up winning the race) had an interview with SPEED Channel that we happened to run into and we also got on the pre-race show on SPEED, where we saw Kyle Petty and Kenny Wallace. We happened to tape the pre-race and saw ourselves multiple times. We stick out like sore thumbs! Notice how we are one of the few people without our favorite driver's t-shirt.

The drivers we ran into

We're on TV!!