What it’s like to travel 40 weeks a year.
Hello to everyone out there reading this!
So today I want to talk about my crazy schedule and how I plan life. That’s probably once of the most asked about thing when it come to my job.
During the season a typical work week Monday is our day off, Tuesday and Wednesday is working in the shop, we’ll fly to whatever track we are going to on Thursday majority of the time unless there is a late garage open time on Friday and it’s a short flight. Friday to Sunday I am at the track which changes every week unless we are in Charlotte racing, that is where all the teams are located. Sunday after the race we will fly home typically within 2 hours of the race ending sometimes more or less depending on who’s on the plane and how far away from the track it is.
Majority of the Nascar team fly chartered planes through victory air unless they own their own planes like Hendrick, Gibbs, and Stewart Haas do. Our planes are 50 passenger regional jets that can typically go 3 hours on fuel, for the “out west” swing we stop half way for a fuel stop usually in Tulsa, Ok or Amarillo, Tx. Because of the type of plane we fly and it’s chartered through the teams we don’t fly through main terminals it’s usually the small private ones along the back side of the main airport. On those fuel stops we get to get off the plane to stretch or use the restroom in the FBO while they fuel. Some people stay on but I’m not much for using an airplane bathroom they are kind of small and bumpy plus post race most the guys don’t smell like a bed of roses so my nose could use the fresh air.
Some people may think it’s a waste of money for the teams to charter planes but commercial cost way more per person and you can’t change flights last minute like we can with Victory, we can call them last minute and change the names of who’s flying for our team. Driving is cheaper some times but takes so much time out of the week you loose time working in the shop and that can affect how prepared your cars are plus it’s exhausted for the mechanics. I don’t know the exact costs of fly but I know it’s easier than commercial. We will have rental cars waiting for us when we land to head to our hotels. We have amazing travel coordinators at our teams that work with all the company’s to make it smooth, it’s not always smooth sailing but rarely a disaster given the amount of things the are coordinating.
We will drive to Bristol and Martinsville because they are both under 3 hour drive away. I have flown to Bristol several times it’s about a 15 minute flight which can be nice but usually a little rocky.
Now that you’ve got an idea of how we get to and from each race we can talk about what it’s like to have a crazy travel life.
One nice thing about living in the Charlotte area there’s a large amount of drs, hair salons, and any place that you need an appointment that understand our schedules so they are flexible if we have to reschedule. I try to schedule everything I do on Monday afternoons or Thursday mornings because I know I will be home or it’ll give me enough time to reschedule Monday morning if we get rained out. Another fun fact about having Monday’s off it is so much easier to run errands during the week, stores are less crowded and traffic isn’t nearly as bad as on the weekends.
After a month or so back in the swing of our schedule life tends to calm down and a routine comes back. Some weeks Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s are easy 7-4 days and other weeks who knows how late we’ll work just depends on if everything goes as planned with our car for the following race. There has been plenty of weeks that we didn’t leave the shop until after 8pm just to make sure we were ready to unload with a solid car.
So there’s a small peak inside what it’s like to travel close to 40 weeks a year with the Nascar circuit. If you guys want to know more about anything I talked about feel free to comment below and I’ll answer the best I can. One of these days I’ll talk about what the off season is like for us (we actually work more hours most of the time).