Vickers Diary: Ga-ga over Augusta

I've got to tell you guys: My off weekend was awesome. Jeff (Gordon) and I went down to the Masters, and it was unbelievable. We actually went down Saturday and Sunday, but Sunday was, obviously, the biggest day. What an awesome place.

	Brian Vickers

If you've never been to the Masters, you've got to find a way to get there. That place is just so different. There was so much I really liked about it. They've really kept to its roots. It's very historic. There is no advertising. Zero. None. You can't even take a water bottle in there with a label on it.

They don't let you. All food and drinks are really cheap. They don't try to gouge fans on food and drinks and stuff. Man, you can get two sandwiches, two bags of chips, two cookies and two Pepsis for six bucks. Total! And it all comes in non-advertising containers. There's no advertising anywhere on the course, either. No billboards, nothing.

On TV, the entire match is shot commercial-free. That's really impressive. There's no autographs permitted. No picture taking. You can't take cameras in, can't take phones in. And, man, they're really serious about it. There are places that say 'No cell phones,' but you can get by with it. Well let me tell you, at the Masters you go through three security checks, and then if you still get your phone in and get caught with it, oh man.

These tickets are handed down from generation to generation. They're not like tickets you can just go out and buy. The person who currently has them can sell them, give them away, obviously they can use them, whatever they want to do with them. But you can't just go get them just because you feel like going out there that day.

And man, if you get caught with a cell phone in there, whosever passes or tickets you used are revoked forever. They can never get in again. The Masters ticket is the hardest ticket to get in sports. There are people that pay three and four thousand dollars to get in there. And if you get caught, they're gone. That gets your attention.

BRIAN VICKERS  •  Driver Page  •  Diary: Cautions warranted  •  Diary: Slow cars not a cut-and-dry issue  •  Diary: Darlington. Finally.  •  Diary: Lovin' Atlanta  •  Diary: Learning so much from the Hendricks  •  Diary: First Daytona an experience to remember  •  Hangin' with Vickers on the set of TRL  •  Hendrick team not resting on laurels for '04

Jeff and I got our tickets through a friend of mine, Spiro.

Spiro went out early Sunday morning and put some chairs out on the 18th green so we had a place to sit, front row. You go there, and there are 50,000 people there. You walk around the course throughout the day and have a good time, but man, when it gets to the end, the 18th hole where Mickelson made that putt, or the 16th where they made those holes in one, and that place goes insane.

I've never seen that many people in one spot in my life. Elbow-to-elbow, tight as possible. And it's quiet, too. You won't even move your paper, for fear you'll make a rustling sound. You don't want to be that guy.

But when they make a putt, everybody goes crazy. When Mickelson made that putt to win it, all those quiet people turned into race fans. I mean (they were) hollering at the top of their lungs. It was wild. It was such a neat experience.

You'd be surprised how many race fans were there. Most of them didn't bother us, knew we were there to see the Masters just like they were, and left us alone. But there were still several that would ask questions or ask for autographs.

This is funny: More than half of them came up to us and said, 'So, you guys racing today?' Swear. At first we just kept saying, 'No, we're off this weekend.' Then finally, after so many people kept asking, we were like, 'Yeah, we just decided to skip it.' I'll tell you what, no matter what we told them they'd believe us.

Jeff told one of them, 'Yeah, man. I won the race and left early.' He believed him, was like, 'Hey man, congratulations! That's awesome!' It's neat, though, to be able to go to a deal like that and have people recognize you. I think that says a lot about NASCAR and how much it's grown, when so many people at the Masters are also race fans.

I love racing, and a lot of times on off weekends I may go racing somewhere. Maybe a Busch car or something. I might even consider running some Truck races this year. But it's nice to get away every once in a while, enjoy myself. I like golf. It teaches you a lot of things - patience and mental focus. That's a lot like racing, mental focus is a huge part of it.

If you talk to any golf fan, there's no event that can compare to the Masters, whatsoever. The Daytona 500 is huge for us, no doubt, but you have some fans that say another event is bigger. Some people think the Brickyard 400 is bigger. But in golf, it's all about the Masters. It's unmatched.