01/05: InnoShare NHRA Drag Races Company Trip
Category: Travel and Leisure
Posted by: bwoods
Its April again and that means its time for the Annual InnoShare NHRA Drag Race Trip! Since our Atlanta Web Company has been expanding we literally had twice as many people going this year, so the more the merrier. Last year we had a great time in Downtown Asheville, NC, but this year we wanted to do something a little different. We called the Drag Strip and found out that we could CAMP out at the track. Think about it, waking up at 9am to the sound of Top Fuel drag cars tearing up the strip and engine tests sounded too good to pass up. We plunked down the $250 to reserve our 20' x 60' camp site, threw our tents and grills into the truck and headed to the track.
As soon as we made it to the track, they turned us away...
Here we are 1 truck 1 SUV and 7 people driving into the camp site, the security guard waves us in and we notice this sign:
Of course this made us a little nervous when we were about to pitch two 6-person tents into the middle of this place. We then proceeded to inquire about the sign to the closest guard, who upon noticing that we did not in fact own an RV told us that we could not pitch our tents in the campground! WHAT?!?!!?!?!? How do you have "camping" without tents?!
Now, we might not be rocket scientists or anything of that nature, but we always assumed that the word camp did in fact entail tents. I broke out my phone and did a quick search on dictionary.com and found this definition:
Camp
1. a place where an army or other group of persons or an individual is lodged in a tent or tents or other temporary means of shelter.
2. such tents or shelters collectively: The regiment transported its camp in trucks.
In other words, by very definition, to camp includes a tent, so wouldn't "NO TENT CAMPING" be an Oxymoron? If they wanted only RVs, shouldn't they call it RVing? Remember the ad "Go RVing" that ran a couple years back? After much argument with Atlanta Dragway about whether for $250 we are entitled to pitch 2 tents, we actually found a REAL camp site across the track. A family there was using their huge property to let people pay for close parking and also as a campground for both tents and RVs. They gave us a spot THREE TIMES the size of what Atlanta Dragway was going to give us and closer to the entrance, for only $30!!! To say one good thing, Atlanta Dragway was happy to refund our money to us, which basically meant that we saved $220 and used it for drinks in the track - we scored both ways!
After that the trip went very smoothly, we did worry for a bit that it would rain all weekend. Weather.com and others were saying that it would rain the entire weekend, but we totally lucked out. Saturday was perfect drag race weather all day and it did not start raining until about 2am Sunday and then rained for the rest of Sunday, but we were leaving on Sunday anyway.
I never get tired of watching the races and the new guys we brought along were equally impressed with the amazing speed these cars launch at. Its basically like watching fighter jets launch off the deck of a battleship again and again. Line up another car and it goes from a dead stop to 300+MPH again and again, how is that not completely mind blowing?
For dinner Sam did not disappoint cooking steak, swordfish, salmon and the BIGGEST shrimp I have ever eaten in my life, they were like eating small lobsters.
All-in-all the trip was again a complete success and we want to thank everyone who came out with us, NHRA, and Atlanta Dragway (for the refund). We, of course, will be going again next year for anyone who wants to attend, like I said the more the merrier.
Check out the gallery of our trip:
As soon as we made it to the track, they turned us away...
Here we are 1 truck 1 SUV and 7 people driving into the camp site, the security guard waves us in and we notice this sign:
Of course this made us a little nervous when we were about to pitch two 6-person tents into the middle of this place. We then proceeded to inquire about the sign to the closest guard, who upon noticing that we did not in fact own an RV told us that we could not pitch our tents in the campground! WHAT?!?!!?!?!? How do you have "camping" without tents?!
Now, we might not be rocket scientists or anything of that nature, but we always assumed that the word camp did in fact entail tents. I broke out my phone and did a quick search on dictionary.com and found this definition:
Camp
1. a place where an army or other group of persons or an individual is lodged in a tent or tents or other temporary means of shelter.
2. such tents or shelters collectively: The regiment transported its camp in trucks.
In other words, by very definition, to camp includes a tent, so wouldn't "NO TENT CAMPING" be an Oxymoron? If they wanted only RVs, shouldn't they call it RVing? Remember the ad "Go RVing" that ran a couple years back? After much argument with Atlanta Dragway about whether for $250 we are entitled to pitch 2 tents, we actually found a REAL camp site across the track. A family there was using their huge property to let people pay for close parking and also as a campground for both tents and RVs. They gave us a spot THREE TIMES the size of what Atlanta Dragway was going to give us and closer to the entrance, for only $30!!! To say one good thing, Atlanta Dragway was happy to refund our money to us, which basically meant that we saved $220 and used it for drinks in the track - we scored both ways!
After that the trip went very smoothly, we did worry for a bit that it would rain all weekend. Weather.com and others were saying that it would rain the entire weekend, but we totally lucked out. Saturday was perfect drag race weather all day and it did not start raining until about 2am Sunday and then rained for the rest of Sunday, but we were leaving on Sunday anyway.
I never get tired of watching the races and the new guys we brought along were equally impressed with the amazing speed these cars launch at. Its basically like watching fighter jets launch off the deck of a battleship again and again. Line up another car and it goes from a dead stop to 300+MPH again and again, how is that not completely mind blowing?
For dinner Sam did not disappoint cooking steak, swordfish, salmon and the BIGGEST shrimp I have ever eaten in my life, they were like eating small lobsters.
All-in-all the trip was again a complete success and we want to thank everyone who came out with us, NHRA, and Atlanta Dragway (for the refund). We, of course, will be going again next year for anyone who wants to attend, like I said the more the merrier.
Check out the gallery of our trip:
