Going to a Race at Pocono Raceway
see also:
Chris's pictures of the garage area and pits
Crowd of 140,000 Well-Behaved - story from Spring 99 race

Parking

On Saturday, we woke up to a beautiful morning. We left our house around 7:00 am (Princeton, NJ) and arrived at Pocono race track at 8:45.

Pocono has plenty of parking.  They park you in large bumpy fields. On Sunday, by 7:00 am, there were already a lot of people there. Thankfully we didn't have to walk far, but if you get there late, be prepared to do a lot of walking.

Traffic

We left immediately after the race and it was a little slow walking out of the grandstand area, but once we made it to our truck, it only took us 30 minutes to get out. I didn't think that was bad, considering they didn't have anyone directing traffic.

The only road leading to the track was Route 115 and I noticed most of the traffic was heading north on 115 to get to Interstate 80. We took the back roads in, and there was no traffic whatsoever. This is the route I took, and it will probably help anybody who is coming from the south.

From Interstate 78 West, I took the last exit in NJ for Route 22. I got on 22 and went through Easton, PA.  I then got onto 33 North, and I took that for about 25 minutes to Route 209 South (Sciota, PA).  Route 209 took me to 115 North, which lead me right to the track on my right.

There was not traffic going to and away from the track on this route.

On Saturday, we left after Happy Hour, and we didn't have too much problem with traffic, because we knew a back road.

This is the key for getting out of the tracks with few problems - I went up on Friday afternoon to scope out the track and area and figured out which parking lot we would want to park in and which road to take. It really does help to check out the track the day before the races.

Seats

Ticket prices for Saturday Grandstands were $30.00/each, and garage passes were $30.00/each. We got into the stands just in time to watch Saturday morning practice. We sat in the Main Terrace Section about 30 rows up, below the Terrace Section there is a section called the Concourse Section, and that
has about 25 rows. So we actually were about 50 rows up, and guess what, we couldn't see the whole track. I was told as long as you are up 20 rows, you could see the whole thing, not true.

My only guess is maybe if you were to purchase the skybox, at $200.00/ticket, maybe you could see the whole track.  As it was, we could only see the cars for a little bit between turns 1 and 2, and then again a little out of turn 2 going towards turn 3. Turns 1 & 3, I could not see at all.

Also another strange thing was that when the cars would be right in front of you down the frontstretch, usually you can see them. Well here I couldn't see a thing, maybe a roof of a car if I was lucky. Now to see them right in front of you, you would have to sit down below. My thinking on  this was I that the grandstands were not as steep as the stands at Charlotte & Daytona, because when we were at those two tracks, I could see everything.

The stands were bleachers, not chairs, and they don't have backrests on them.  Now I must say, it was a little roomier than the other tracks, but the down side to sitting on bleachers was
everyone was standing on the bleachers and it made it even harder to see.

We had a nice view of the pit area, and of course, our favorite
drivers had their pits right there, so that was nice, got some good pictures. But for the most important part, I didn't enjoy the race because again I couldn't see a thing.   Everyone was standing for most of the race, even though you could see better when everyone was sitting.

The track did not have any jumbo-tron screens.   The only nice thing was their speaker system, which was very loud, so you could pretty much hear everything. Still, I would suggest a head set or scanner, but if you forget hear plugs, you could survive without them, because it wasn't too loud.

There lap tower only showed you the top 5 drivers, most towers at least will go to the top 10.

Race-related Events

On Saturday, we didn't have tickets, but we purchased our tickets at the gate. We also purchased tickets for the pit and garage area.

We took our 8-year-old son, and we purchased the pit and garage area tickets because we were told from a few people, and also the staff at the raceway, that they have a area called Autograph Alley and that you can stand behind a iron fence and look into the garage and see them working.  Plus, they said we could walk over to Gasoline Alley, which was supposed to be another great place to look at the drivers and cars.

After practice on Saturday, we decided to walk over to the garage area and hopefully see some drivers and get lucky and get some autographs.

My son is a Mark Martin fan, hoping to meet him and get his autograph (again I was told from the staff that Autograph Alley is great and Mark Martin always appears, and so do a lot of other drivers). We went over to the fence, and were about 100 feet from the garage area. Now bear in mind that you could only see about 18 garages, and the other half were on the other side.

We did get lucky enough and see Tony Stewart, Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace and Jeff Burton.  Their garages were right there.

During Happy Hour, we wanted to go into the pit area, but my
son was not old enough, so my husband and I took turns going in. That was the best part of the whole day. It was really exciting standing on pit wall and watching and hearing the cars come flying by you. They would come in and pull up to pit wall to check their tire wear.  My husband got to talk to Jeremy Mayfield sitting in his car. He was in good spirits.

But could you go over to Gasoline Alley? No, and Autograph Alley was a joke. It was a small grandstand area looking out to the alley where they drive the cars out to the track.  We were sitting behind a very high linked fence, and it had two little holes in it, so if anybody was to walk by, maybe you could yell and
they would walk over and sign.  According to everybody I talked to, nobody walked by. So personally, I think the staff really pushed all of this exciting stuff and it was not true.

On the other hand, seeing the garage area and being on pit row was exciting. Got some nice pictures!!

After the ARCA race, we walked to souvenir trailers where we got Steve Park's and Sterling Marlin's (very pleasant guy) autographs, and we were rushed like animals to get Rusty Wallace's autograph.

Another strange thing about Pocono was usually you don't have to show your tickets to walk around the souvenir trailers. Here they had the trailers in a fenced area, and you had to show your ticket or else you couldn't get in.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think that is right, because every other track had it so you could walk through the trailers and you didn't need to purchase a ticket to do so.

On Sunday, we walked the trailers again, and my husband and I headed over to the pit area.   The teams were setting up their boxes and getting the tires ready.

I got to meet a lot of the crews, and was able to check out their
boxes.  That was interesting. I also stayed over in the pits and took some pictures when they were pushing the cars out, but again, no drivers stopped at autograph alley.

At 12:00, they pushed everyone out of the pit and garage area, before the drivers came out for introduction. We were sitting in Terrace South, which was just to the right of Winners
Circle.

Overall, my rating on our trip to the Pocono Raceway - 4. My husband and I both said we probably wouldn't go back, I'd much rather watch it on TV.

Thanks Chris, 06/23/99

Other links:

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