Phoenix International Raceway, April 23 2005 April 27
On Saturday, April 23 I attended the first NASCAR Nextel Cup race ran under the lights at Phoenix International Raceway. As with the Busch race I won’t bore you with to many details of the race as you can find that elsewhere.
We drove to the track from the Days Inn and made it to the track by about 11:30 AM. The only event on the schedule was the Nextel Cup race scheduled at 5:05 PM. Before the race I bought a hat and Dakar Rally t-shirt from the Robby Gordon trailer,and a $8.00 rain jacket from the Rusty Wallace trailer and sampled some more track food. I had a tasty chili burro and a Lemonade. The two items cost $9.00 all together. The burro was pretty good and it was a good price for a major event.
Before the race started there was a heavy downpour in which the $8.00 Rusty rain jacket came in handy and proved its worth. This caused the race to start a little late.The race was pretty good and the cars looked great under the lights.I was mainly following the plight of Ken Schrader how was running pretty good until he got caught up in someone elses mess. At one point his spotter told him some cars in front of him. To paraphrase Kenny, he replied “No kidding, if you tell me how to pass them I will.”
Kurt Busch was really the fastest car all day, but Mikey Waltrip and Brian Vickers also showed some muscle at different points. I thought Mikey would be able to get by Kurt at the end as he was closing in on him, but it wasn’t to be.
As soon as the race ended we headed to the car which earlier in the day I strategically parked near an exit. In a matter of an hour we were back in the hotel, and that is including a stop at Waffle House for dinner. All-in-all a great time was had by everyone.
More non-racing reports from Arizona to come…
My 2005 racing stats after the Phoenix Nextel cup race are:
Races: 11
Tracks: 6 (1 new)
States: 5 (0 new)