PJ the Comic

2012 Daytona 500

Let me start with I have never been to Daytona.  I am a huge NASCAR fan and in years past we have attended up to 5 races a year.  Daytona has always been on my to-do list in life but I’ve not yet pulled it off.

Fast forward to last night, I was invited to attend this year’sevent. All I have to do is show up in Daytona and I have infield access for the entire week.  This friend has been going to Daytona twice a year for years now. He was born and raised in Daytona Beach.They have the campers, camping, drinking, and parting down to a science.

I know all about camping out in the infield for a NASCAR race. My family does this every year here in Las Vegas.  My family looks forward to this every year. We spend 3-4 days in turn 2 of LVMS. We don’t party anywhere near as hard as we used too, but we look forward to the atmosphere and the people at the track.

I have often told the story that we have been to enough races to have seen over 3,000,000 people all total. I have yet to see a fight.You can’t go to a girls softball game on a Thursday night and see somebody squabbing somebody over something. Here you have the drunkest rednecks you can put in one spot and nobody is fighting.

Now that’s not to say it doesn’t happen. I’ve heard stories from the east coast, and even stories from our track late into the night after most of us civilized drunks have gone to bed. But in general I stick to my no fights speech.

NASCAR is an unbelievable family friendly scene. You’ll see a family of five walking into the race all wearing different shirts. There are 42 losers every week odds are pretty good it won’t be your driver in victorylane at the end.  I believe this takes away the “Us vs Them” mentality and allows most patrons to focus on having fun at the race not hunting down an opposing teams fan and kicking their ass!

Back to the issue at hand, basking in my self made free time at the moment I could pull off this trip. I mean a plane ticket for a week of NASCAR racing seems a good investment. It will be fairly cheap to fly there and then stay inside Daytona Super Speedway. My ears are smoking trying to come up with a way to attend.  I am scheming for all she’s worth to make this happen.

Now to turn my attention to the wife, it’s not that she wouldn’t let me go.

We don’t have that kind of relationship. We decided 21 yearsago when we married that neither of us was the others parent. We don’t tell each other yes or no. We are grown ass adults and we make our own decisions. We each support the others ability to go and do what they want, when they want. But that’s not really the point. Chris would love to go. She enjoys NASCAR as much as I do. She will be bummed to miss out on this. This will make both Talladega and Daytona I will have gone to, without her.

Not as if there has been some concerted effort to not include her, just the stars haven’t lined up for both of us to go together. It is a little harder to schlep two adults across country, take time off, get the house watched, etc.

But now I may be suggesting I attend another super speedwayrace without her. And I have to make the decision today. The plane ticket is exactly 14 days out. After tomorrow the prices go up to PJ can forget about it rates.

This trip will not be a comfortable one either. There will be no hotels, room service, and taxis. This trip will be sleeping bags, hangovers,and hitchhiking. Not exactly the kind of trip to take a beautiful woman, who deserves way better than crashing in a tent on the grass of Daytona.

I am thinking about going and filming the trip and using the video for my business. Sounds like a good excuse to make the trip. Might even be some tax implications.

I have often thought of how to engrain myself within NASCAR.We enjoy it so much and have often talked about when we might be able to follow the sport for a full year. I think that would be a hoot to get an RV and go to every single race. I’ve thought about doing comedy at the track during raceweek.  I’ve thought about a NASCAR reporter of some kind. Something to pay the bills while going.

That’s right I’m scheming a way to pull this off.

I’ll let you know what I come up with soon……..stay tuned…..