[legion]

I went to both of the races at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday (Busch and Nextel Cups).

Before going, my coworkers asked me to take pictures of "people in tank tops who shouldn't be wearing tank tops". I failed miserably. I saw maybe two of these all weekend. The majority of people were my age (26) or younger, and appeared to be well off. Considering the tickets cost $155 (I got mine at a discount--I think the scalpers were selling for double that) for the weekend, it makes sense.

I've never seen so many Nextel phones in one place. EVERYONE at NASCAR has a Nextel phone. You'd hear that special beep and a dozen people would reach for their pockets.

I've been to 8 or so Jimmy Buffett concerts. I was expecting a similar crowd. Unabashed drunkeness, party atmosphere, etc. Nothing could have been further from the truth. This was probably the best behaved large crowd I've ever seen. I didn't see anyone drunk; no one was rowdy. People were generally well behaved and polite.

I'm used to the types of crowds you get at Bears or Cubs games. And I don't go to those anymore because of it. With those sports, you are less of a person if you are not a die-hard, raving fan. You might find yourself punched (or worse) if you show up with a Green Bay shirt. At the races, everyone respected the right to root for whatever driver....except Jeff Gordon. Maybe it helps that there is no "home" team.

The races themselves...were just as boring as watching them on TV. At least I had a radio scanner and could listen to the drivers go back and forth with their crew chief. Every once and a while there would be a spectacular crash, but the rest of the time it was just loud.

You could try to follow a car, but if you blinked, sneezed, or farted, you would lose track of it. You could try to scan the track, but I never seemed to be looking in the right place when something happened. Usually my first signal that there was a caution was that all of the sudden the cars engines slowed down, then I'd try to find where the accident was.

I'm 50/50 on whether I will go back next year. NASCAR isn't my thing. I'm hoping the IRL races in September will be better. I've been told it will be the same crowd as you are required to buy tickets at this track for all of the races in a season, lest you loose your seats next year.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow hopefully.