I thought I share my very brief first-time NASCAR experience at Pocono from the truck race. I'm not an oval or NASCAR fan in general, I prefer sportscar and touring car racing on natural road courses (hate city tracks) but the ovals have their own spice, for sure. Add a bunch of NA V8s screaming over 150mph and that's a package I want to see in person. My wife (the best!!) accompanied me, she doesn't care much about racing in general, but she has very good eyes (both literally and she's much better noticing things) and the truck race was an ideal length for her. We forgot the earplugs but it wasn't that bad.
We were up in the shaded area which I deemed a bit too far away. When I asked here earlier about preparations, I was told to bring binoculars. Unfortunately, both of us were busy with our work and we left in a big hurry (~2 hour drive) that we didn't have time to prepare, hence no binoculars or earplugs. Parking is free but as we arrived quite late, we had to walk a lot, not a big deal though. Foodwise I can't say anything due to my allergies, my preferred soda (Coke Zero or regular Coca-Cola) tastes pretty much the same in the typical 20oz bottles across the US anyway
I bought 2 baseball caps (one of them was from a 2009 collection
) and 2 T-shirts (a Pocono one and a general NASCAR one), not an easy task if you don't know the series', the teams or the drivers
We also noticed a lot of people sporting Race Electronics gear. I looked it up while there and was quite shocked how expensive they are. Then I found on their website that you can rent them - based on the RE bags those people had, I must assume they picked them up from the RE truck we saw after the race - next time I'm gonna go for that, too. I was also surprised how many people were there in the grandstands, the amount of RVs inside the track, the amount of cars parked and the RVs outside. I'm always amazed about the number of race fans, no matter the series. I was surprised last year at Mid-Ohio (IMSA), same last Friday at Pocono. I work from home and don't meet many people who'd be car enthusiasts or race fans too often (maybe some at Cars & Coffee). Atmopshere was good, just can't stand the smell of beer
Given the lack of binoculars we couldn't follow too much, even though we could see a big screen, as well - but I'm too distracted by the place in general to have the same awareness what I'd have when watching a race from home. That's not a complaint, I know what I'm getting into
I also had the NASCAR app open on my phone which was a bit delayed, so we didn't really know why Heim lost the lead and fell back so hard. I plan for us to watch the race on YouTube (I was quite surprised how many races are available at NASCAR's YouTube page).
All in all, it was a good experience, we most likely will be back. We didn't become fans but it was absolutely worth it! I wish Lime Rock would be closer to us, that one looks super interesting for me, I love that track, will catch that race on YouTube for sure!
EDIT: I tried to convince my wife to go to Dover, it's actually a bit closer to us but she wasn't enthusiastic, maybe next time
