Giving up my TMS season tickets

[Lucky161]

My dad suggested last year that I should consider not getting season tickets anymore. At first I thought he was crazy, but after giving it lots of thought, I've decided he's right. I'm paying around $1100 for three weekends of racing for 4 tickets. But the Cup race generally is not that great and that's where the bulk of the costs are. And getting to and from the track on Cup day is becoming more of an ordeal. My dad is nearly 75 and the trek from the parking lot to our seats in that crowd is getting pretty tough on him.
We've decided to just go to the Indy car races and maybe the BGN race, which is usually better than the Cup race. I might go to one of the truck races, but tickets are less than $20 for them and besides, they seem to schedule either ASCS or WoO races at the Devil's Bowl on the same night the trucks run. If we use the 4 for $79 or $99 deal, I would be spending about $200-300 a year for the races that we really want to see.

[Maddog]

Be careful, TMS may force youto buy Winston(Nextel) Cup tickets to guarrentee those IRL tickets!

[Railbird]

I went through the same problem with my MIS season tickets years ago Lucky.

The Cup events weren't worth the hassle and the tickets were becoming a pain to unload so I dumped the package.

Since then I haven't missed a race up there that I wanted to see and saved money in the process.

[Jay J]

We dropped our TMS season tickets after the 1999 season was over, and haven't regretted it since!

At the time, we didn't have PSL seats so the best we could get were two seats on an aisle in section 131, in row 66 (top row, extra room behind you but WHAT a hike!)

Now we buy individual IRL tickets shortly after they go on sale in the fall, and have been able to get PSL seats (the blue ones with armrests and seatbacks) near the S/F line, just high enough to have a great view but not a feel like you just climbed a mountain to get there.

Our biggest reasons for dropping them were the distance and level of traffic/parking to deal with, driving back and forth each day over the 3 day event weekend (we live roughly 60 miles from TMS on the NE side of Dallas) the high cost of season tickets, and our growing disinterest in stock car racing.

Now that we are parents (our Daughter will be 2 in September) it was an easy decision to make to not pay the $$$, deal with the drive and traffic/parking and arrange a baby-sitter only to attend truck and other stock car events that just don't "do it" for us any more.

[indymotors]

Lucky, with the money you'll save, you can get the new seat covers.

[Frank Capua]

Lucky, don't listen to Maddog... all I've ever gotten tickets for at TMS is the night race in June.

And I have never been pressured to buy NASCAR tickets, nor have they ever threatened to move our seats because we didn't have season tickets.

[Teej]

My situation at Michigan is that a co-worker who has very little interest in the IRL gets tickets to all the races up there and then sells me his IRL tickets, which we found out the seats for the IRL is better then Cup...

I wouldn't mind going to Chicagoland for both IRL and Cup, but I think they have a third race weekend up there as part of their season pass that I wouldn't be interested in, so I continue to decipher info and try to figure out how to get there...

[DavidM]

Lucky, I don't blame you one bit. The Cup race is a big hassle! If you park close it take 3 or 4 hours to get out, and to get out somewhat fast you need to walk a fair distance. Reguardless of the racing, the IRL race is a better experience just because it's less of a hassle.

[Taxpayer]

Well, the TMS 2004 season ticket renewal arrived with Monday's mail.

Its time for a little reflection. I know I am going to be cutting down on the quantity of seats. That will require a day trip to Fort Worth to keep the remaining group seated together.

I guess I have until October 1st to determine whether or not to keep the season tickets one more year.