RV-10 takes us to Nascar!

It was 10:30 am on Saturday morning when my wife asked me about my weekly bet with my friends on this weekends Nascar race. I told her this weeks race was in Phoenix and it was a night race tonight. She has never been to a race and looked up and said, "Lets Go!!!".

OK, I ran from the bedroom and hit the internet like a man possessed.
The race starts at 6:00pm, we have 8.5 hours to the green flag, should be plenty of time!
Weather ---- check ------ little bit of rain, we will have to go a little east, no TFR's, 433 nm to Scottsdale airport, wind looks favorable
Car ----- check ----- $37.00 for the day including tax, we will pick it up right at Landmark Aviation at Scottsdale
Tickets for the race ----nope
Hotel --------nope
We will worry about that later.

We grabbed a sweatshirt and something to sleep in, threw it in a small duffle bag and we were out the door.

Had to drop our dog off at the sitters, grab some food, and off to the airport. Plane was all fueled, did the pre-flight, and wheels were up at 12:30pm.

Once in the air I contacted Salt Lake approach and began our climb to 11,500. As usual flying south is nothing short of amazing in Utah and Arizona. Let's see, we went over Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Sedona, and just a few other average spots.

Right after take off GPS says 484 miles and should land in 2 hours 47 minutes.
We climbed up to 11,500 and put some Tom Petty in the CD player.

Part II

Pretty cloudy until we hit Bryce and The Grand Canyon.
Here is a great picture of the confluence of the Little Colorado and the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The water is so blue the picture doesn't do it justice.



The Grand Canyon

Part III

More shots of Sedona. RaNae and I both agree that this has to be one of the best places to fly over. Sorry these shots are a little hazy, the weather wasn't perfect.

Part IV

OK, we had a few bumps coming into the Phoenix valley but landed in Scottsdale 2 hours and 44 minutes from wheels up to wheels down. We landed at 2:14 pm local time. By the time we tied down the plane, put the cover on and found the Hertz guy to give us our car it was 3:05pm. We took the 101 Freeway to the west and then found an In & Out Burger for some quick lunch and headed in the race. I could not believe this but there was no traffic going in. We must have been so late that we missed everyone.
Next item on the list, tickets. We stopped at a couple of places on the way in but they were out of pairs and only had singles. About 1 mile from the racetrack there was a car on the side of the road that had tickets for sale. They had seats in the Allison section, row 34. PERFECT!!! They wanted $125 each (face value $107), no problem! We grabbed our tickets and then got lucky again, we missed the turn in for general parking and ended up in employee parking somehow. This would pay dividends later when it was time to leave.
We pulled into the parking lot at 4:30pm - 1.5 hours to green flag. Plenty of time for some shopping! RaNae definitely needed some Nascar gear. We loaded her up with t-shirts and hats from Jr. and Rousch. We decided we had time to walk around and check all the other displays.




2 Margarita's Please!


Here is a toy we all should have. It's only $80,000

Part V

I am a Hendrick fan but couldn't pass up a picture of this home-made t-shirt.
Poor Gordon, no respect. (he has never won at Phoenix though)



WOW, loved the seats! I'm never purchasing months in advance. I can't get seats this good.




There's Gordon on the pole.

Part VI

F-16 formation fly-over.


Here is the new Fan View scanners they have. Pretty cool. You can listen to all the drivers and the radio call just like the old scanners but this can show in car video, replays, but the coolest part is the lap by lap times. You can see who has the best car every lap. And with it being a night race you could see the screen very well.



Bogety Bogety Bogety, lets go racing!


Trouble in turn 2.


After an hour or so we were under the lights.

Part VII

The race ended with Jeff Gordon the winner! Lucky pit stop put him in the lead but he still had to fight off Mr. Stewart and tied Dale Sr. for number of career wins at 76.

Well, now the fun part of any Nascar race, the race out of the parking lot. We left after the burn out and victory lap, returned our headsets and then headed for the car. We were close to the road and able to get out of there in about 5 minutes. That was a first. We headed for a late In & Out again, and then to find a hotel. Made a few calls and we had a room at the end of the Scottsdale airport runway at the Fairfield.

I woke in the morning to the sounds of jets taking off, perfect. We headed over to the airport to eat at one of our favorite airport restaurants, "The Blue Fig". We pulled up and noticed the name had changed to "Taylors". It was about the same menu and was just as good. Tons of Cirrus's and jets were on their way home.






We were parked on the front row (left) third from the end where the open spot is. Lots of nice jets are always in Scottsdale. There are some cool FBO's there. Loved the wing shaped roof.

Part VIII

Here is a shot of Carefree Airport. This would be a fun airport to be located at. You could have a home in between the airport and the golf course.


More shots on the ride home. (Traffic 2 o'clock!)


Rainbow Bridge in the middle of the picture.

Part IX

We made it home after making some diversions for weather. Total time home was 2 hours 39 minutes. Touchdown time was 3:00 pm local time.

What a great weekend. We had no plans for the weekend and ended up at a Nascar race 7.5 hours later that was 500 miles away in 70 degree weather. With an RV your options every weekend are almost too much to think about. Well, the lawn, paint, basement cleaning and bills will have to wait for next weekend. This weekend we made the most of.

RaNae asked me right after we landed, "Where is the next race?" "Talladega, Alabama", just a quick 10 - 12 hour flight! We will have to see.

Happy Flying!

-Scott and RaNae

Wow! What a trip!!!

Nice write up and your one lucky man with a nice LADY to boot.
I'm a big NASCAR fan btw. My best bud used to help me when I raced Winged Alcohol Sprint cars for several years and he got the bug of racing so bad that he moved from the Kansas area of farming to NC. Long story short: He landed a job at Hendrick Motors where Jeff Gordan is at. I've been to Concord, NC 4 times in my life and toured the Hendricks engine/fab shop and many other NASCAR shops,,,,,, that is something I'd suggest for one of your flying trips. Charlotte/Concord, NC is a must flying trip if you really want to see it all and take tours of over 25 plus NASCAR shops and Charlotte week would be the best. E-mail me if you'd like more info as it is something to see and experience.
Oh forgot to mention, the flying into NC is wonderful
AJ

Scott, THANK YOU!!! That's one of the most fun trip reports I've ever read.

Forwarded the link to my NASCAR-obsessed Mom so she can forward it to the 2 billion people she emails daily about this stuff. I'd expect a link to your story to be on Dale Earnhart's message board in nanoseconds.

Thanks again. Wonderful motivator!

Best,
Doug

you suck

I'm stuck in Rome and you post this report?!?!? And not even one mention of how Jeff Gordon, the greatest driver of all time, tied Big E in total cup wins? Come on!

I'll come get ya!

DakotaKid said:

I'm stuck in Rome and you post this report?!?!? And not even one mention of how Jeff Gordon, the greatest driver of all time, tied Big E in total cup wins? Come on!

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Looks like it is around 8000 miles to Rome. It will take me about 45 hours (each way) and I need to carry 578 gallons of gas.

Scott and RaNae,

Fantastic trip report!

I'm sure you had the unforgettable experience that many of us have felt while pushing your RV back into the hangar, that moment when you realize what you have just accomplished with your "homemade airplane". The little plane certainly expands your universe in ways you never thought possible.

Hope you make the Talladega trip. There is nothing like seeing a "flight" of 40+ cars coming off the high bank toward the tri-oval!!

By the way, Sammie's Touch-n-Go restaurant is at the north end of runway 02 at St. Clair (PLR) just minutes west of Talladega. You can taxi to the front door.

Great write up!

Thanks Scott,

My first really long cross country in any airplane was in the 7a form Corvallis oregon to St George, UT where we went to see Brice Canyon and Zion..>What incredible scenery!

I must admit I was pretty scared at the thought of all those miles, but now I feel I can go anywhere.

We are very blessed to have Wives that want to so this stuff with us!

Cheers
Frank

ScottSchmidt said:

It will take me about 45 hours

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That's about how long we were in line at customs in Atlanta.

wow

That is one amazing weekend, one this 172 pilot is dreaming of experiencing someday.

Love the plane Scott, a picture of it on the ramp being fueled is the background here on my computer at work. One of these days I'll replace it with my own.

-John

Planning on building an RV.....someday.

jtrusso said:

Planning on building an RV.....someday.

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You will build it. I have no doubt! Start planning your trips now!

That guy in the picture on your computer was one of the neatest airport bums ever. He almost never leaves that airport. He is a rare breed. We could use a few more of them in the world. The next Red Bull Air Race is about 50 miles from that picture in the direction the picture was taken. Just got my tickets. Sounds like they are only going to have 5000 available. Can't wait!

I flew over

Hi Scott,

Nice report. I used to have season tickets to PIR and loved the races.

I flew over the track on south edge of the TFR about an hour before race time at 180kts on my return from Jean Nevada. You might not have been in your seats yet. The stands looked pretty empty at that point.

One of my RV goals is to take about 3 weeks and hit 3 tracks in a row. I've got some ticket connections!!