NASCAR: A traveling circus

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Many times, the sport of NASCAR has been likened to a traveling circus.

Every weekend, town to town, crowds of colorfully dressed men and women converge at the racetrack. Inside the garage, tires roll to and fro and the whistles of the NASCAR officials blow and blow.

Outside the track, the NASCARneys work their respective concessions and fans stimulate the local economy buying up all the Dale Earnhardt Jr. merchandise and sponsor-friendly beverages of their choice.

• Send Raygan your thoughts
• Raygan's Community profile

Perched high above all of this activity is a room full of agenda setters and axe grinders, talking heads and mouth pieces, absorbing all the activity below, tasked with delivering the happenings to those at home who are unable to make the big show.

Unable to make the show, a thought NASCAR drivers perish, is what prompted me to share with you readers the series of unfortunate events that nearly forced me, and dozens of key characters in the show, to miss the opening acts at Watkins Glen this weekend.

If you've ever seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles then you have a good idea of what happened and what dozens of others working in NASCAR went through to get to Watkins Glen, located in upstate New York, where the weather and air traffic has been as volatile as Tony Stewart during a post-race interview.

The melee began at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday at the Charlotte, N.C., airport starring myself, two NASCAR driver public relations reps and a brake specialist.

Unbeknownst to them while boarding a plane to LaGuardia Airport, the quartet, who arrived separately, would ultimately spend the next 15 hours traversing inclement weather and bottlenecked airlines transportation together.

Why? To make the show of course, because when you're Denny Darnell, Kasey Kahne's public relations manager, you have to be there, as does Jade Gurss, who handles publicity for Earnhardt -- and you know how popular Junior is. And the brake specialist, well he offers tech support for Brembo brakes for the Nos. 24 and 48. So yeah, he felt it necessary to make the show as well.

As for me, well I suppose their vigilance rubbed off on me a bit, because had I not hooked up with the determined travelers, I'd still be in Charlotte, not Watkins Glen, N.Y.

So ...

1 p.m. -- I board the plane, wave to Denny sitting in first class (nice) and take my seat with the groundlings in economy class. Jade was two rows behind me likely working on how many different ways to say no to the onslaught of media requests the man receives for Earnhardt.

1:50 p.m. -- Pilot comes over the intercom to indicate the line is too long to take off and we need to refuel anyway, and so we were headed back to the gate. I turned and looked at Jade and laughed.

2 p.m. -- Our plane gets a splash and go, but actually we don't GO anywhere. Apparently flights to and from LaGuardia are delayed, nothing is moving so we deplane. OK, no big deal. What is a big deal is that we don't re-board the plane until 5 p.m. Still, all is not lost. At the advice of Gurss and his platinum gold card rewards plus mega miles flyer club membership, we rebook for a later flight, as does Denny.

5 p.m. -- We board only to sit for 15 minutes and only to get in a long line of planes also waiting to take off. But before we make any real progress, Denny comes back to Jade and me and says, "Hate to be the bearer of bad news gang but our connecting flight to Ithaca is canceled." OK, still no big deal, we can always catch a later flight or if anything fly out in the morning.

7 p.m. -- We arrive in LaGuardia. First thing, I check the board for flights to Ithaca while Jade stands in line to inquire about lodgings. There are flights remaining to Ithaca, however, they have big fat CANCELED flashing in red next to them. Jade, being the upbeat polite character in the story, pleads with the airline representative to find us another flight. Her response: I can put you on a flight at 3:45 p.m. Friday.

Hmmm, well gee, lets see, that's after Cup practice and qualifying so that won't work. Now everyone is completely panicked.

9 p.m. -- Jade to the rescue with his rental car rewards platinum plus gold medallion club frequent driver membership that provides us with an option, an option that will ultimately provide me with hours of priceless NASCAR entertainment.

"If we can get our bags and they aren't being sent on to Ithaca, I guess we could drive. It's only about 300 miles."

Ah, 10-4 Jade, as long as you're driving. We head to baggage where we find Denny flustered beyond belief having what sounded to be a deep conversation with an automated system of some sort.

Denny has exhausted his travel options and joins our crazy train and on the way out Jade picks up Jeff Leonard, the Brembo brake specialist. That's the thing about NASCAR, it's one big family, much like performers in a circus. Jade didn't know Jeff, he only knew that he was wearing a Brembo racing shirt and that he likely needed to get to the show.

At the rental car counter, we are informed that the company charges a $600 one-way dropoff fee and Jade nearly has a heart attack. Me, I'm trying to guess what hotel the airline is going to put us up in and how much my food voucher will be worth.

Denny, not so much. The man makes it happen and talks the rental car manager into a deal and we walk away paying a little more than $250. Nice!

On the way out Denny commented, "I wanted to say, 'Hey I want to rent the car, not buy the darn thing.'"

10 p.m. -- We've all packed into the car leaving the city, however in an hour we've only traveled about 13 miles. But it's OK because between Jade and Denny, they've got a couple of decades full of racing stories and driver antics to keep me entertained for hours.

Like the time Denny had to put 30 cents on his credit card because he forgot loose change for the tolls in Chicago.

11 p.m. -- The crew is hungry and stops at a diner, Paul's Family Diner, in Mountain Lakes, N.J. We all pile into a booth but not before finding electrical outlets to plug in our crack-berries because we have to stay in constant communication with our NASCARnival! At Paul's, Jade becomes the photojournalist and feels it necessary to shoot our meal so I eat my salad then finish Denny's fries and Jade's tuna melt. Jeff is still overwhelmed by Jade's generosity and continues to thank him every third hour.

The rain has let up for a brief period of time but will return in the last leg of the trip and Friday afternoon in time to cancel qualifying at Watkins Glen, which is why I need to pause to reflect on just how much rain has affected the NASCAR season thus far.

Midnight -- It won't stop raining! To give you an idea of how much rain has dumped on NASCAR events this season, three qualifying sessions -- Texas, Daytona (Pepsi 400) and Watkins Glen -- have been canceled, one race -- Pocono in June -- was shortened after 106 laps, and three races -- Dover, Richmond and Darlington -- have been rain delayed until the following day.

NASCAR's stat master, Michael Payne, said it's been a while since the sport has been impacted by this much rain. Not since 2002 at least, when five qualifying sessions were canceled and five races shortened by rain.

But with 14 races left before the season-ending event in Miami, surely we have a chance to match or surpass that number. And seemingly every race I go to, it rains.

2 a.m. -- Back in the car, we pass a sign for Pocono, coincidently. Wow, we all just left Pocono on Monday, guess we should've stayed. See what I mean by traveling circus?

I need to point out that Mr. Brembo brake specialist and Jade, who is driving with a hand-held GPS system, are in the front seat while Denny and I are in the back. I point this out because the navigators over-shot Ithaca by at least 30 minutes. We stop to turn around but not before the "three men and a map" afford the lady a pit stop. I thought if I ever wanted to interview Earnhardt on his race to the Chase, I'd better take it easy on Jade.

4:30 a.m. -- We finally reach the Ithaca airport, where Denny is set to pick up his rental car and make his way to the hotel. Then we drop Jeff off at his hotel and make a trek out to the country where I am staying at a bed and breakfast. They had a cancellation and gave me a sweet deal. However, what was not sweet was me navigating my way through the dark trying to find my room.

5 a.m. -- The innkeeper at John Joseph Inn told me my door would be unlocked and the key on the nightstand. So Jade is behind me helping me with my bag, meanwhile I'm twisting every door along the hallway to see which one will open.

Bingo! One opens and I flip on the lights. The light shines on a couple, who before my disturbance, were sleeping soundly in a king-size bed! The lady throws herself from the bed and runs to the door. I apologize profusely and she starts to ramble about soap. She needs soap! "How am I supposed to take a shower without soap?" she asked. "I can't take a shower without soap!"

Feeling awfully embarrassed and delusional from the long journey, I went searching through the creaky yet beautiful house to find the woman some soap. After 20 minutes, I found some and quietly placed it outside her door and retired to my room for the end of one heck of a trip.

The next morning at breakfast, everyone read me the riot act about barging in on the unsuspecting couple in a deep slumber. I guess I've been traveling this circus for way too long now.

Somebody get my freak flag!

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.