TOWtally Random Thoughts

Recently I had the fortunate opportunity of hanging out with the crew of Santa Fe Tow as they worked at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS on a race weekend.  I had two delightful hosts…   Bob and his lovely wife.   I wasn’t sure what I was going to be getting in to.  Santa Fe Tow is contracted to remove illegally parked cars, cars in the way of the race day process, even the RV’s who got stuck in mud.   I learned right away that this might be an interesting weekend, because the ground was still very soft from the 27″ of snow Kansas City received over the winter.  The KS Speedway has free parking because the lots are, for the most part, unpaved… they are gravely or dirt fields.  Great for the visitor, unless you’re in a big ol’ RV or truck that just sunk into the ground 12″.   So Santa Fe Tow was revved up and ready to help.  Keep in mind, this is NO CHARGE to the race fan.  Santa Fe Tow takes the towed cars to a different lot where the patron is shuttled there when they are ready to leave.  That’s a very kind strategy on behalf of the KS Speedway and Santa Fe Tow.  They want everyone to have a great time.

Bob didn’t want me to just see vehicles being towed or hoisted out of mud,  he really wanted me to enjoy the whole Speedway experience.  I told them I was not particularly a fan of going fast. *insert gasp here*  I’m just not.  I’ve been on the back of enough motorcycles where the driver bolted without telling me to hang on.  I grew up with two brothers who would do anything to get me to potentially cry, because of their need for speed.  It makes my palms sweat just typing about it.   So I got my “pit credentials”  ( I’m not even sure that’s what its called) and got on the back of the slow golf cart (aaaahhhh) and we headed to the infield.

OK, first of all, it’s not what I thought.  It’s a party.  A constant party!  The families and friends of the drivers and their crew are partying and the fans, separated by a chain link fence, are partying in their RV’s.  It’s some of the best people watching I’ve seen in a long time!  Plus it was loud.  I do like loud. Bob winked and said “I told you you’d like it”.

To keep from droning on and on and on about all the fascinating things and people I saw, I’m going to present my facts in pictures and one sentence remarks. Hang on… here we go.

First of all, fans aren’t just flying freak flags above their RV’s and re-purposed school buses, but rather they are showing pride for their country and their favorite drivers.

Next, race fans are very clever.  Not just are they using all shapes and sizes of RV’s but they have re-purposed old school buses!  Brilliant. I’m all for reusing products in new ways.

I learned that even if your re-purposed school bus doesn’t have the luxuries of some of the gigantic RV’s, the KS Speedway is going to take care of you.  I present, the Mobile Shower.

I met mostly people working or volunteering the days event.  Here are the emergency service fire fighters…

And thank goodness because there are a LOT of wrecks in racing!  I had no idea! Here are some from the IRL race on day one. (Yes yes, I know IRL is not NASCAR.  All of you on Twitter reminded me that several times as I was posting photos. LOL!)

The next day was the NASCAR Truck series… and wow, that was a royal mess on the track from the start!

I found the pre-race inspections very interesting.  All the cars line up and run through this opened up garage and are quickly measured all over, for required specifications and to make sure the cars were not pimped out before the race.  People can even watch.

Then, they immediately shoot them through the same process when they are done racing, to ensure there were no hidden advancements placed on the car in pit stops during the race.  I like that.

I also like the huge trucks that the cars and trucks are transported in.  Like two story semi trucks with pneumatic lifts and good looking men working those lifts…

I watched the truck series race from way up high on the second day.   The roar of the engines rattled me to the core…  did I mention I like that.  I was taking a few photos and turned around to Bob and his wife and smiled.  Bob said, “There she goes. She’s now hooked”.  I think he might be right.

Immediately outside of the Speedway entrance is an entire city of merchandising trucks.  It was like Barter Town… a city of fans getting everything from devices to listen in on the teams radio frequencies, to a sporty jacket from your favorite driver. This was Bob’s favorite…

We had a storm roll in on the second day during the truck series.  I wish I got a photo of the huge truck with the humongous jet engine on it, that drove around the track, post storm, for an hour and a half using the engine to dry the track off.  That was the loudest noise I heard the entire weekend.

There’s a lot of pomp and circumstance to race days events… and I’m all for fanfare and a lot of people rallying behind a common link.  I met some incredibly kind people that weekend and every soul had a huge grin on their face. What’s not to like about that?  Thanks Santa Fe Tow for allowing me to tag along. You have a cool job with awesome perks.

Yep… I think I might be officially a race fan after all.