Rant - at Pocono Raceway

This picture is from my phone on Saturday... hopefully before the races next year, I'll get the pic's I want to share from Curt's camera.

First I want to say that Pocono was my favorite racetrack.  Been going to race weekends there forever.  Will be there in 2 weeks again for the Indy race. But lately they have been adding and changing rules faster, more often and with less sense than NASCAR changes it's rulebooks!

Last summer, they wouldn't let you bring in aerosol spray sunscreen.  Yet there was a tent in the fan fair giving them away?  So if you liked that brand you could just bring your freebie in.  This June, some of the bag screeners were stopping aerosol sunscreen and others were letting them in ( I would have been livid if I just lost a can and saw other people in the stands using it)  Then last weekend, people were allowed to bring it in.  (realistically since I itch if I encounter SPFs over 12-15 - I'd rather not get hit with overspray - but it's the principle)

This June - they said once you enter you can't re-enter if you leave. This totally screwed up a lot of peoples' shopping plans.  My original plan is I tailgate breakfast, and around 8:30 we go in and check out the shopping.. buy some more coffee ( I'm usually done with the coffee I bring with me at that point) and go back out to the tailgate to ponder.  Then around 10:30 when my brain decides that I want all of it, I go back in and buy (basically the majority of my non-work wardrobe) and bring the bags out to the car.  Then we break down the tent, and go in the track at around 12 - buying lunch at one of the stands and heading up to our seats. So in June I bought 1 shirt, because I didn't want to have to lug stuff around.  Last weekend  I bought one toddler shirt.  


Mind you - they said it was for "security" reasons.  How exactly??  Curt, who always  has his pocket knife with him, had it in his back pocket.  Glass and umbrellas are pretty much what they looked for at the bag checks.  And they weren't stopping anyone from leaving.  So it isn't like a potential "badguy" could do his damage and not escape.  In today's world of suicide killers would no escape even matter?

Basically, a pointless rule.  Supposedly advised by law enforcement -- yeah I've seen them dealing with traffic -- not impressed.  Many of us tailgating thought it was to force more concession stand sales.  If that was the case, it was a fail - my unscientific survey showed that everyone was under the impression that lines were shorter not longer, and it wasn't like there were more vendors spreading people out.  I think that without re-entry more people stayed outside the track longer.

I thought I was dealing with this change rather well, until around 1130, when I started seeing people heading back to their cars with shopping bags.  Not just one or 2, but a bunch of separate groups of people!!  I finally asked one... he apparently asked 4 or 5 people that worked the gate and discovered --- you could leave after your ticket was scanned as long as you weren't in side for more than 45 minutes!  And then they gave you a re-entry ticket that could be scanned for you  to get back in!!!!

What the fuvk???????  Other people in our tailgate area had tried and were told there is no re-entry ticket!!! Because clearly, between Saturday and Sunday someone realized what a boneheaded plan it was, and since they can't reprogram all the ticket scanners this reentry ticket was  devised.  Only not only did the fans not know - the people working the gates didn't know!!  When Curt and I went finally went in  - the guy who scanned our ticket informed us there was no re-entry!!