I finally went to a race.

It only took me 8 years, but I finally went to the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte (or Concord as it's officially known). I've lived in Charlotte 8 years now and it seems like you're just not a Charlottean until you've been to a race "at least once, just to say you've been." From a visual standpoint, this was sensory overload. Sponsors pull out all the stops doing everything they can to get your eyes on their booths, tents, trailers, billboards, whatever.

Some observations: Big track signs outside the track are pretty good for directing people around the big loop. What they didn't do such a great job of was directing people to the basics: where to find food, water and the bathrooms (had there been signs to the port-o-potties, those surely would have made Amanda's bathroom sign collection.

• Inside the track, there could have been better signage to different areas of the stands. Granted, the tickets did prompt users... er, fans, to enter at certain gates so as to minimize their trek. Once inside the gates, signage wasn't great at all. I suppose the argument could be made that if you're a real fan, you've been before and know your way around. For this newbie, I found myself going with the flow a lot. Then again, when you're one in about 160,000 people, it's not entirely bad to be a follower.
• Cars and ads inside the track - the bolder the better. My poor eyes had trouble reading some of the numbers on the cars. The neon and red numbers were the easiest to keep track of as they whizzed around the track.
• Note to the advertisers who fly their ads above the track grounds: go big, go bold, give me a simple image and WRITE TIGHTER. Banners that used thin fonts were terrible reads from pedestrian level. Best banners were bold text with a few key words or phrases. Not the entire ad campaign flown from behind a plane.

Didn't have the camera today, alas. I had my hands full helping out my college roommate's Jaycees group, passing out Tums. Yep, that was me in one of the Tums golf carts and at Gate 12, shouting, "free Tums!" I highly recommend behind the scenes work as a way to get the full picture of the NASCAR experience.