Media and Fan Day at Richmond International Raceway

April 14, 2008

By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson

Happy Monday folks!

Yes, I will be showing up on Mondays for each Saturday night race we have this year. Which is fine with me, because that means I get to sleep in on Sunday.

I don’t know who decided to set the start time for Phoenix for sunset Arizona time, but this weekend killed me. I am not a night person to begin with…and staying up to catch the end of not one but two races past midnight on consecutive nights leads to a long Sunday. Oh sure, I was very productive around the house Saturday since I didn’t sit to watch the race until 7 p.m.: I mowed my lawn, washed my deck, and did a little gardening. On Sunday, I cleaned the house and did laundry. All things that had to be done, especially since I was afraid the neighborhood kids might get lost in the grass of my front yard. However, watching a race across two days between start and finish is a bit much. When you consider a lot of east coast families have to get up to go to church on Sunday, and midnight is well past a lot of kids bed times, even on a Saturday, my guess is the ratings declined steadily through the course of the race, even with the crashes and Dale Junior racing against his old car, driven by Mark Martin. (Of course, in the end it was Jimmie Johnson who took the checkered flag.) My clock read 12:08 a.m. when the 48 did its burnout, and Dale Junior looked as tired in his post race interview as I felt watching it. I know we have night races that start at sunset on the east coast, but even those are usually done by 10 p.m….11 if there are a lot of crashes. Listening to the Sirius post race show last night, they were going until 2 a.m. Great for truck drivers, not so good for the rest of us.

Moving to the start of the race, I had to wonder about Fox’s decision to break into the pre-race to conclude the Yankees-Boston game, which was just getting underway in the 8th inning after a 2 hour rain delay. They stated the game was being shown both on Fox and FX, and that they would show the green flag once the race began, and finish the game on FX. Well, my question is why didn’t they just move it to FX and not miss any race coverage or game coverage? In the end, they dumped out of the game with a full count in the 9th, three pitches to go, to catch the end of lap one. So any baseball fans watching the game were likely mad they lost the last few pitches of the game by sticking with Fox, and the race fans were less than thrilled to not see the National Anthem, the engines starting up, the pace laps, or the green flag.

Bad call across the board on that one, Fox. Next time, if you have two sporting events and two networks at your disposal…send one to FX and keep the other on Fox. Simple solution.

In other news, I made a pre-race jaunt down to Richmond International Raceway this week to talk a little safety and take a little ride. As I stood at the start/finish line, I noticed the wall did not have a SAFER barrier. The corners at RIR have them, but not the straight-aways. I asked Aimee Turner, director of Public Relations for RIR, if they had any plans to add the barriers all the way around. She told me that they didn’t, because with few exceptions (specifically Martin Truex Jr’s wild ride along the back stretch wall three years ago) they rarely have incidents involving the outside walls along the stretches. That said, she did tell me that after Jeff Gordon’s crash at Las Vegas, they took the time to evaluate the safety of the openings along the back stretch wall and have taken steps to either close them off, or set them up so it is almost impossible to have a crash like what Gordon did.

Kim Strapped In and Ready To Take The Ride

I also took the opportunity to participate in a ride along at RIR, however it was not in a stock car. It was in a 2-seater Indy car. RIR hosts several ride along programs a year where fans can come and take part in either stock car or Indy car ride alongs, allowing them the opportunity to get a feel for what it is like to circle the track. On Thursday, the Petty Driving Experience was setting up to spend the day letting fans take to the track, and the Indy Racing Experience had a car on hand for four of us to take laps in. I know, I am more of a NASCAR fan, however when I was given the option to select between the two, I knew I would get more speed out of the Indy car experience, and being a race fan, its all about the speed.

We suited up in black driver uniforms and headed out to the track. First off, let me say I have a whole new appreciation for the drivers wearing those uniforms for hours at a time. Sure, I had on jeans and a long sleeved shirt under mine, but I think I have a good appreciation for just how warm the guys get in those things, especially in the middle of summer. For the Indy ride along, you sit behind the driver, not next to him, so when my turn arrived, I squeezed myself down into the seat (you can not be claustrophobic to do this), they put on my 5-point harness, put the cover on around my shoulders so only my head was visible, and almost as soon as the guys stepped away, we were off. And I do mean off.

You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you make a decision, then wonder about your sanity as soon as you are beyond the point of no return? Yeah, as we headed off pit road, I had that feeling. My driver, Danny, hit the gas well before we actually cleared the end of pit road. Once we got going, my moment of panic turned into one of the biggest adrenaline rushes I have ever felt. We took a lap to get up to speed, and then spent three laps averaging what I was told was around 160 mph around the track.

You also know that feeling you have when you hit the top of a roller coaster and stick your hands up in the air as you fall. Yeah, I wanted to do that. However, since I was unable to, I just gripped my knees and grinned like a kid while trying to take in everything as we made the laps. There were cones set up on the bottom of the track in the corners, and each time we came around, it looked like we were going to hit them, but we never did. And you know when drivers say they feel like the car is on a rail? I get that now. This car got up to speed and stayed there all the way around the track. When it was over, I got out of the car, sat on the pit wall with one of my fellow riders, and shook with the adrenaline that was still running through my body.

Now I understand why these guys race for a living.

Sadly, the Indy ride alongs are sold out at Richmond this year, however there are still plenty of opportunities to take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience at Richmond between June and November (including race week in September). If you live near any other tracks across the country, you can check and see if there are opportunities for you to get a feel of what it feels like to either drive or ride along by contacting your track to see what kind of programs are hosted near you.

One last note about Richmond, tickets for both the Nationwide and Cup races in three weeks are still available. You can buy a ticket for the race, get Party Zone access, and even get pre-race pit passes. Even better, you can print them off at home instead of waiting to have them delivered. For more information about all the activities at Richmond International Raceway, visit RIR Web Site www.rir.com. If you have never been to Richmond, you’ll love it. It is the only track I have never missed a race at since I became a fan in 2004.

Next week is an off week for the Cup Series, however the Dakar Rally is back! OK, it has actually been revised to be a trek through Central Europe (a round trip from Hungary to Romania and back…get out your atlases), however the fun and adventure will still be there. I will have my annual Robby update, three months late, next weekend as he makes his way through the wilds of the rally. For more information about the revised rally, visit Central Europe Rally.

Have a great week!

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You can contact Kim at.. Insider Racing News

    Read other articles by Kim Roberson

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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