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| - I had an AMAZING time attending the 2015 Coca Cola 600 on 5/24/15 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The experience started almost a year ago when I called and spoke to one of the ticket salespeople to discuss how to get tickets. He got my information and assured me that he would call me back when the tickets went on sale for non-season ticket holders. Sure enough, come October, my friendly ticket agent called me. After a couple of missed calls, we finally connected and as I was chatting with him, I clicked through the website so that I could look at the seating chart while discussing tickets. Clicking through the ticket page, took me to Ticketmaster. I asked what it would cost me to sit in the Club Suites since I was headed all the way to Charlotte and felt like maybe I should do something a little special. As I was getting the run down on the price levels ($300-$450 per ticket), I was looking at the suite sales on Ticketmaster and found front row Club Suite seats for $105 each. I asked about them and he said that was not right because there were no Club seats for that price. Savvy shopper that I am, I thanked him for his help, but said i was going to snap up the cheap seats while they were available and sort it out later if a problem arose. It never did.
We had AMAZING seats in Club Suite #140, Row 1 on the 6th floor of the Speedway Club building. The suite was air conditioned, comfy, we had a table in front of us and could see EVERYTHING. There were snacks and food available, as well as soft drinks - all at no charge and a full bar to purchase alcoholic beverages. The only hitch was that they do not allow screened print t-shirts and we were in Nascar gear, so I had to purchase a shirt from the Speedway Club shop that did not have screen printing. A few weeks before the race, I called again to ask about parking and if I needed to purchase a parking pass. Since I had the club suite tickets, they sent me a complimentary parking pass to the lot right across from the track, entrance U. EVERYTHING WAS AWESOME.
So, on race day we arrive at the track - traffic and parking were a BREEZE since it was a night race and we arrived at 10am. CMS sets up their vendor area the way Fontana used to be which is that they have all of the vendors and driver trucks set up outside of the track so that really anyone can go and enjoy those things because you don't need a ticket until you're actually entering the gate into the seating area. LOVE THAT. I really wish Fontana would go back to that set up. It's just so much more fan friendly and you don't end up doing a lot of walking around where there is nothing to look at. Additionally, across the street from the track, near parking and motor home parking, they have sort of a swap meet set up where you can buy all kinds of Nascar gear, diecast, t-shirts, etc etc... it's really kind of neat. I loved it.
We had purchased tickets for the Beer Festival which was super cool. They have this giant truck set up with around 60+ taps and you get an electronic card that gives you 4 oz pours out of the tap when you put it against the sensor. There were also a lot of local and national brewers set up in booth and we had 3 hours of all you can drink beer. We had almost paid the double price for VIP which gave an extra hour o f drinking and a commemorative glass (with no year on it!). SO glad we went with the regular price. It was such a better value and we had a great time.
After spending the day wandering, we headed to our awesome seats and got to watch a truly spectacular pre-race show. Because this is the Memorial Day Weekend show, there is a huge focus on the military and the festivities were really wonderful. SO much better than watching on TV! Then there was the race. 600 miles is a dang long race, but we were glad in this case because we were super happy when one of our drivers, Carl Edwards, surprised all of us by getting the win.
The only negatives I saw, was the infield camping area (which lets tent camping, by the way, AWESOME!) was dirt. Don't know if I'd want to camp on dirt. And, victory lane is not viewable from the stands because it is behind the pits. I like that Fontana puts the Vicotry lane right out on the grass in front of the pits so everyone can watch. Other than those two things, this is a fully AMAZING track and I highly recommend it to any Nascar fan who is considering a trip to a new track. The people there are so friendly and hospitable and the vibe overall was fantastic!
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