Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Paying for parking is one of those pet peeves of mine that I have basically learned to accept no matter how much it drives me nuts. I've always deemed it disrespectful to your fans or customers if you are a business and you do not have available parking for them to attend your event or whatever business you have. Little bit of my grandpa coming out there. I remember him taking me to a Bengals game when they moved into PBS and him throwing a wicked fit about how his tax dollars helped pay for the stadium and they didn't have the respect to have enough land for the fans who paid for it to park. It was a pretty comical tangent that he went on but, I did see his point. He was stubborn and thought charging for parking was one of the most dispicable things any business could do to its fans. At the time that was $20 to park, now I would gladly pay $20 to go to an NFL game. 

This past month I was luck enough to go to the outdoor NHL game between the Jackets & Wings. I was able to get free tickets through a volunteer gig that I did. I had to pay ahead for parking and thought of him because it was $50 for a parking pass to be remotely close. Then I spent about $40 on 3 hotdogs and 3 bottles of water. My son oddly enough choose to be a Florida Panthers fan years ago and I took him to the game last thursday. I snagged some resale tickets for $17 apiece clear up at the top. WIth the service fees it added up to be $48 for 2. I parked at the garage by the arena and the parking fee was $40. I had to laugh and shake my head and go, it cost me almost as much to park as the tickets. I can say it is the main reason why I do not go to a lot of major league/pro sporting events anymore. All of the extra price gauged costs on top of the tickets.

Typically at most sprint car events around here, most tracks have enough parking for the most part for the fans. Some of them it does get tight for those coming directly after work and get to the track right at hot laps and qualifying. When the Outlaws were at Wayne county a few years ago I think I did pay $20 to park in someones yard because the tracks lot is not big at all to support that crowd. Other than that, outside of the kings royal weekend, parking and concessions is reasonable. 

These are interesting times for sure. Another similar example is flying. 

If you know how to play the Spirit Airlines game, many times you can get a direct flight cheap.

Recently we flew nonstop over 1,000 miles a way, one-way, and our total flight cost was cheaper than total parking price anywhere around the airport.

So we Uber'd both legs and it was still cheaper than what it would have cost us for parking. 

That literally makes no sense at all: having a $50M+ commercial plane fly us over 2,000 miles costing us less than taking our personal vehicle to a parking space to just sit there for a week.

There's a busy sprint car racing weekend coming up, hope you can take in one of them in your area.