No, Thunder did not come home with the $15 practice tire. I'm sure the foreshadowing hit you like a ton of bricks. What makes it even worse is he could have gotten 2 for $25. And as JohnnyH pointed out, 4 for $50, though if he was gonna buy 4 "the guy probably would have sold them to him for $40". But, then, what would we have to look forward to for the next race if Thunder bought the practice tires this time?

Speaking of JohnnyH, I think he spent as much time in a car or on a plane as he did in Concord, NC. Considering he was only around for 16 hours and 6 of those hours were spent at the race track, there wasn't a lot of time for hijinks and hoopla, but it was nice to get the latest from the world of pilot training. Oh, and in typical JohnnyH fashion, he had gone out the night before he flew to Raleigh so there were plenty of entertaining stories there.

The more races I get to, the more I feel like the $100+ ticket price is almost worth it just for the experience and atmosphere outside the race track. Of course, then you might ask, "why spend the money for the ticket, just go and hang out?". To that I'd say you might be on to something. But then again, that's like going to a baseball game just for the hot dogs. It's a little different because you can't get the hot dogs without the ticket, but the point is that all of it, going to the race, camping out in the massive RVs, and then enjoying the smell of rubber and exhaust, is part of the package. Each experience by itself is fun, but the fun is amplified by infinity when you put it all together.

I don't know if I'll ever have the kind of money that would afford me the opportunity to travel from race to race week in and week out. But after every race I attend, the price I'd be willing to pay (or in my case, willing to let someone else pay) to go to one gets higher and higher.

Just don't tell NASCAR I said that.