The Daytona 500: Last Blue Collar Stop
Dan Wetzel wrote a interesting article on the Daytona 500 titled "Everyone’s welcome."
Welcome to Daytona, the last blue collar stop on the nation’s major sporting tour.
I’ve been to almost every big sporting event in the country, most of them every year, and when it comes to accessibility for middle and working class people, there is nothing like this.
You have to hand it to NASCAR… no other sport allows fans to get so close to the action. Camping in the in-field… access to pit row… you have to love it.
The cost? Three tickets and an oversized parking spot for the week costs $900. That’s $300 each for a place to stay, a place to party and a place to watch the race that’s better than the actual grandstands. Allegedly, if you cook breakfast for the guards or slip them a cold one, getting extra people in is not a problem.
There just isn’t anything like this in any other sport.
No… there isn’t. I don’t know of any sport where you can get such a great value for the most important event of the season.
I found this really interesting…
Not far from the proletariat tent city of Turns 3 and 4 are rows of Prevost Coaches that can run up to $2 million.
The view of the race there isn’t much different than over here. And changes in tax base aside, the people aren’t either.
"They drink beer, too," said fan Kevin Astuto. "They’re as friendly to us as we are to them; it’s not like they look down on us as some dirtballs."
I never realized there were "millionaire club" folks camping the in-field of NASCAR races along with everyone else. You gotta love this sport! 