This past weekend the LeRoy Crew traveled to Watkins Glen, NY for NASCAR’s Heluva Good Sour Cream Dips at The Glen. One of only two road courses on the NASCAR schedule, The Glen is NASCAR’s only stop in New York State. For 26 years Watkins Glen has been one of the most exciting races on the schedule, but more importantly it is also NASCAR’s biggest party. Most NASCAR fans you talk to, whether casual or die hard, will put The Glen on their bucket list of must see races for this one of a kind experience. Here’s a brief summary of what we experienced in our first trip to The Glen.
Even though this was the Crew’s first time at The Glen this wasn’t my first rodeo. I am a seasoned NASCAR fan who has been going to Watkins Glen for nearly 20 years. I’ve pretty much seen it all, but this year I was finally able to talk my friends (the rest of the crew) who are casual fans into going. To get the full Glen experience we decided that we wanted to camp at the track for the weekend. Planning for the trip began six months in advance (something I would strongly recommend as this is a very popular event). We purchased an unreserved camping pass and tickets through the SPEED TV deal that included a grandstand seat and a cold pit pass. The total cost for four people was a reasonable $358.
Camping & Partying
We arrived at The Glen Thursday evening to setup camp. We were surprised to find that most people had already setup shop, some as early as Wednesday morning. While setting up camp we enjoyed listening to some of our neighbor’s southern folk music (which was far from politically correct) and watching a gentleman known as “skinny weaver” fire up his lawn mower to mow the front yard of his campsite (I can’t make this stuff up folks). At that time we also met the infamous Kenny, a young man from Penfield, NY and a seasoned veteran of The Glen. As we later found out, Kenny was one of the wildest partiers on the property. Each evening we walked around the camp (which was about 2 square miles) looking for the party. We didn’t have trouble much trouble finding them. Any campsite playing good music quickly found a group of 500 to 1000 people joining in the party. Overall people were fun and friendly. We saw no major incidents that weren’t created by the county sheriffs. The whole camp was one big festive party. The only downside was the lack of sleep one would get. Loud partying would last until about 5am and we were only able to get a good 2 hours of sleep before “skinny weaver” fired up his loud generator at 7am.
Wild Wreaks & Great Racing
We saw great racing all weekend from all three series (Grand-Am Rolex Series, NASCAR Nationwide Series, & NASCAR Sprint Cup Series). In the Nationwide race we saw brothers Kyle and Kurt Busch battle for a win in the closing laps with Kurt ultimate taking the victory. Sunday’s Cup Series race was delayed and eventually postponed until Monday due to rain. But, the wait was well worth it. The race featured a series of wild wreaks and a late battle for the lead between Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, and Marcos Ambrose. In the end road racing ace and Australian native Marcos Ambrose captured his first career Sprint Cup Series win. Our overall experience was great, the rest of the crew is hooked, and we can’t wait to go again next year.
