For us, Talladega has always been one of those bucket list NASCAR races. It’s an iconic racetrack, one of the few with pack-style racing, breakneck speeds and spectacular wrecks. Since this race relies as much on luck as on strategy, anyone can win it, which only adds to the excitement of the racing.
We seized upon the opportunity to go see this race, and built our itinerary from Denver to Michigan around Talladega. Touted as “NASCAR’s biggest party,” we were a bit skeptical about camping out at the track but decided to go ahead and give it a try.
We reserved a spot in the Legend’s Lane campground, located a short walk from the rear entrance to the grandstands. Our camping pass was good from the Monday before the race until the Monday following the race. We decided to stay for all seven nights, arriving well before the rest of the crowd.
For the first four days, we had the campground pretty much to ourselves, which was nice. The other campers in the area were respectful of quiet hours, which were from midnight until 6 am. There were no raucous parties, and only a couple of people ran their generators at night. There were no utilities in this campground, which meant a full week of dry camping. In order to keep our residential refrigerator running, we ran our generator enough in the early evening to put a good charge on the battery, which held us over until morning.
A decent shower house was within easy walking distance of our campsite, and having the ability to shower there really helped us manage our water usage in the RV. Early in the week I had the place entirely to myself and I felt like I could take my time. The showers don’t stay on unless you’re holding the knob and turning it, so I devised a way to keep the water flowing using one of my hair bands, which allowed me to rinse my hair thoroughly. The water was lukewarm, but comfortable. By the weekend, there was a line to get into the showers and the water was ice cold. The one benefit to that was that everyone pretty much hurried through, making the wait to get in manageable.
The weekend racegoers (and also the biggest partiers) seemed to arrive on Friday. You could walk through the various campgrounds and see (as well as hear) the many parties going on, with many of them running into the wee hours of the morning. Generators could be heard running at all hours of the day and night, and one friendly drunk man wandered the campground with his little cooler full of beer, chatting up (in slurred speech) anyone who would talk to him. We had mentally prepared ourselves for a noisy and wild crowd, and it turns out the reality of it fell short of what we had expected. Even at its busiest, the campground was a very livable place to be.
Our only real hiccup was late Friday night/early Saturday morning. The campsite directly to our rear had been empty all week, and we had wondered if anyone would actually show up and take that spot. Then, at about 3 am Saturday morning, a trailer pulled in to that site, and he was every bit “that guy” you dread. He rolled in with headlights blaring, then turned on every outdoor light he had once he had his rig backed in. He began setting up camp at 3:30 am, waking up everyone around him. To top it off, he set up both of his generators and let ’em rip in the wee hours of the morning. Shortly after he had set up and gone inside, our carbon monoxide alarm started going off. It turns out he had placed both of his generators so the exhaust was pointed right at the rear of our trailer. The exhaust blew under our trailer, filling the inside with fumes. I opened up the doors and windows to air it all out, then shuffled out in my pjs and pointed his generators in a different direction, where the exhaust had room to escape. (When you are out camping, please keep these things in mind and don’t ever be “that guy!”)
We also had some tent campers come in late that night, although they were extremely quiet about it. The next day, they told us they had been in the free camping area just outside the track, and that the noise and partying were too much for them. (This coming from a fairly young crowd.) One guy said there had been stripper poles set up at various campsites, adding, “I’ve never seen so many titties in my life.” Hah! I guess now we know where the real partying happened!
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at the track and we would definitely do it again. The campsites were large, but the access roads were narrow, so we were really glad we had arrived early and could drive through open campsites to get into ours. Had the campground been full when we arrived, our rig would never have fit. Staying until Monday worked in our favor, too, because most people had already left and we had plenty of maneuvering room to get out.
And the racing? Well, that’s another story for another post. Stay tuned…
