Here's a tip

Time is short tonight, or should I say this morning. I got in from Phoenix last night around midnight. My friend Grady and I took my wife to the NASCAR race tonight and tomorrow morning and 9:15 I board my flight to Vegas. Talk about your quick turnarounds.

There was one thing that happened at the race that I wanted to post. It happened when we bought our tickets. Grady and I don't buy tickets before we arrive at the track. We buy from other fans.

The thing about NASCAR is that it is an advertiser's dream and big corporations pump tons of money into the sport, and that includes buying and handing out tons of tickets to their customers. Many of those tickets find their was to guys that a looking to make a buck and don't care about going to the race.

Back to the story, we are walking along the road and I hold up three fingers. I know this is either the international sign that I need three tickets or the race fans will think I am a Dale Earnhardt fan. The latter is not the case. Almost immediately this guy in a nice ford truck waves some tickets at me. I cross two lanes of traffic to go talk to him. He as four tickets and is willing to sell three to me for $100 per ticket. I tell him that 100 is too much and start to walk when the price magically drops to $70 per ticket.

Since we had not seen many tickets for sale, and these were $93 face value seats and it was time to secure a seat, we deiced to buy. We hand the money over the money and say thanks. As we are about to walk away the guy looks as us and asks for a "nice tip." I looked at his girl friend and she about busted out laughing and rolled her eyes. That guy had some guts to ask that, but I said something about not tipping for tickets and walked. Tipping was the running joke for the rest of the night.

The seats were in the Miller (as in the beer) section. Dozen of the fans around us were totting junk embossed with "Rusty's Last Call" logo, so it wasn't difficult to figure out. The view was great. We could see the entire track and had an OK view of pit road.

The race was exciting with lots of blown tires. Mrs. K and I had a great time (it was her first race). We look forward to our next race, and again, there will be no tipping.