|
|
|
Darrell and I had originally decided to pass on the races this year, as Nascar is expensive and although we are financially fine (Darrell works for the #1 retailer in the country and they are still making money), turning on the news every night scares the daylights out of us. Last fall we decided we'd just hunker down at home and watch the LV races on TV this year.
...that was until "the offers" started rolling in 4 months ago. Holy cow!
I checked our Harrah's account and we were offered 4 nights comp'ed at Caesars' in the Forum Tower (Darrell was interested in this offer as the bathroom mirror has a TV embedded in it...I was silently afraid that I'd NEVER get him out of that bathroom!).
Since Caesars' is frankly not a place we normally stay at (I would never pay this much for a LV hotel room, no matter how much $$ we have), we decided this might be our only chance to experience "The Empire" for free.
A trip to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway's ticket office during our Thanksgiving trip netted some PERFECT seats in the Dale Earnhardt Terrace, seats 1 & 2 (no crawling over anyone, I hate that) and a "Lucky 7" special parking permit (special lane in and out of the track, hence bypassing the general parking masses).
Since we wanted to actually stay in Vegas for 5 nights, I still had to find one more comp'ed night.
Here were our choices:
Fremont: 4 free nights and $50 free play
Binion's: 2 free nights and $50 free play (we've never stayed here)
Riviera: 4 free nights, $50 food and beverage credit and $50 free play
We couldn't decide, so we booked all 3 offers for Wednesday - our first night! We decided that whom ever had the best room, was where we would stay (rooms are plentiful on weekdays in Vegas, so I knew we wouldn't take rooms from other gamblers).
The housesitters showed up on time Wednesday morning and with the car loaded down with Nascar gear, luggage, a small cooler and 3 huge bags of donations for my favorite charity in Las Vegas (Opportunity Village), we headed South. First stop was at the Eureka Casino in Mesquite, NV to pick up my $75 bounce-back cash and a comp'ed breakfast.
An uneventful drive into Las Vegas with the first stop at Opportunity Village. This charity thrift shop is non-church funded and relies solely on public donations..and yes, they are hurting in this economy. We pulled up to the back gates and the mentally challenged employees were glad to see us with a car load of goodies. Naturally, we had to go inside the store and see if there were any treasures. And there was - a bag of 100 soft cloth neck lanyards for $1. These were neck credential hangers that we saw at the last NHRA races. They are black soft webbing and say "MyRaceLife.com" in small letters on them. Yes, we are hoarding them for the convention, so please feel free to walk up to Darrell or myself at the convention and ask for one...no need to wear the chain ones supplied by the club if you don't want to.
Next stop was downtown to check in at The Fremont...than a walk next door to Binion's to check in there also.
Downtown was very quiet and we did not feel bad about taking extra rooms (hey, I wanted the free play!). We went up to the Binion's room and quickly decided that we would stay at the much newer (renovated) rooms at Fremont. The rooms at Binion's were bigger and had new carpet, a coffee maker and a small refrigerator...but everything else in the room was really old and the bathroom shower badly needed new tiles and caulking ..eeewww! Maybe 5 channels on the itsy-bitsy TV and no room guide had us headed out the door..
Back down to the gaming floor at Binion's to use our $50 free play and we found a bank of quarter machines beneath the old Binion's Miller Lite race car...this looks interesting (an omen on race weekend?)...especially since we sat down and noticed that if you hit 3 of certain symbols, you turned your change light on and the floor manager brought you a free 6 pack of Miller Lite beer! Hysterical, but we not only made $250 from the machines, but we were thankful for the refrigerator up in the Binion's hotel room as we scored a free CASE of beer! I really thought we would get a ticket of some sort to redeem for the beer, but no, we had 4 six packs stacked up between us while we played. If you think the winos downtown bugged you before for beer money, imagine what they did when they saw the beer sitting there. 
We headed out of Binion's and headed to the Riviera to check in before dinner. Once again, we were given a newly renovated room (although I tried to convince the check-in gal that we didn't need a new room, she kept saying "We're not busy tonight, so I'm putting you in a new room"...oops, we had no intentions of staying the night in the Riviera room). We had a decent meal at Kristopher's Steak House in the Riviera (free with the $50 food credit) and spent an hour or two chatting with Nick the bartender. Staff at the Riviera is thin (players club now closes at 7 pm on weekdays...whaaa?) but Nick is hanging in there. He laughs that he is in so many Splashbar pictures that management doesn't dare lay him off!
I only made $30 back from my $50 free play, but the nice lady at the Player's Club gave me another black Riviera shoulder tote bag, so all was good.
An early night in bed back at the Fremont (after getting my $50 in free play up to $80 and cashing out playing video poker) and up early to hit the casinos on Boulder Highway. We had breakfast at Sam's Town with a 2-4-1 Las Vegas Advisor coupon (at this point I am now making money by using the LVA coupon book, I have recouped my $37 cost easily...www.lasvegasadvisor.com) Under $10 for both us, and the food selection and quality was great.
When our race tickets arrived at the house a few weeks before, a coupon for a free ball cap was in the envelope. Actually a very nice embroidered ball cap commemorating the Sam's Town 300 race with 2009 on it and the staff at Sam's was wonderful.
The rest of the morning was spent hitting a dozen other casinos (Arizona Charlie's, Cannery East, etc.) to pick up $1 chips and a few dice. Most chips were "VU", so I did not get any extras.
Back to Fremont street and over to the Gold Spike. The grouchy cashier would not sell me any Grand Opening chips, simply snapping "I don't have any". Darrell was still at the front of the casino, and for giggles, he decided to try his luck at the cashier cage. For the first time, HE got the special treatment! A mint $5 G.O. chip and new $1 and $5 house chips. We called it good at 3 chips and ran back to Fremont Street (tables were still not open to try and find a $1 G.O. chip).
Pack up the luggage at the Fremont (and all the beer still in the frig at Binion's) and head for Caesars'. Even Caesars' was quiet and when I checked in, the friendly check-in gal bumped us up from the fancy Forum Tower to the super-fancy Palace Tower. Holy cow, the room was fantastic! A view of the Mirage Volcano at night, fireworks from the T.I. Sirens show and all the comfort we could ask for.
Mirage volcano in picture...sorry, I forgot to bring a tripod, so my no-flash night shots are alittle blurry.
, 
Now I ask you ladies, WHO would not just LOVE this bathroom? Especially the extra deep jacuzzi tub (great for after a long day of dusty, gritty racing!)!
Throw the luggage in the room as soon as we got checked in and down the street to the top floor of the Wynn parking garage for the Nascar Hauler Parade. I counted 48 haulers in the parade and it was very successful for only being in it's second year (last year's inaugural parade was sorta sloppy, this year's was perfect). Alot of fun, as many of last year's parade watchers were back in the same spot atop Wynn's garage....Good to see everyone again.
Notice the massive trees still in their containers across from the Wynn on the barren Frontier lot sidewalk edge? A Wynn's employee watching the parade with us said that Wynn is so disgusted with the ugly Frontier lot that he donated the trees to be planted to hide the Frontier lot as much as possible from his Wynn/Encore hotel guests
Tony Stewart: new team, new hauler...
Jimmie Johnson's hauler....
Kyle Busch's Hauler....
We spend the rest of Thursday night playing a new penny machine at Caesars' called "Wizard of Oz". Randomly, Glenda the good witch comes onto the screen with a giant bubble and her wand waves free "wild" rows. I wasn't winning when suddenly I got Glenda and she gave me 4 rows of wild (on a 5 row machine). On a 60 cent bet, I made almost $400.
I trotted over to the sports book and put $100 of my winnings on Kyle Busch to win the big Sunday Shelby 427 race and $60 to win Saturday's Sam's Town 300 race. We then ran like hell back up to the room and watched the 11 pm news (and fell asleep during it).
Friday was qualifying day at the race track and sadly, the economy has hit the Nascar sport also. In the past years, there were oodles of free giveaways at the track...not this year....nadda, zip, squat. The only freebee at the whole track was a sample of Coke's Zero One cola. I rely on this race to get my years' worth of cool pens - but none this year 
Weather was beautiful and when we went to check out our seats found all of our weekend "neighbors" already in place and everyone was nice. This weekend is starting off good!
Friday night was dinner at the Orleans for seafood buffet with hot crab legs, fried shrimp, cheesecake and all my other favorite foods. Orleans also has the biggest, coldest glasses of milk in all of Las Vegas. Armed with my coupon book, dinner for two was around $20.
Saturday was up early and breakfast back downtown at Binions. Somehow my players card showed that I had $54 worth of comp dollars. If you've never had breakfast at Binion's coffee shop, it is very good!
Out to the track and watched the Sam's Town 300 NationWide Race. Kyle wrecked right in front of us within the first 30 laps, but walked away unharmed. Rats, I now have a $60 bookmark.
We immediately turned our loyalty to Brendan Gaughan (yes, you know that last name) and his rookie Nascar Sprint Cup season. Unfortunately, Brendan did not finish the race, but we had a great time cheering him on at the top of our lungs.
Forgot to take a picture of Brendon's car, but here is his/South Point's hauler...pretty cool (yup, the South Point is financially doing just fine!)!
Saturday's dinner was tradition for us. Back downtown to the California and the Redwood Bar Grille. As always, the $17.99 Porterhouse steak special (not on the menu, but it's available every night and you just ask for it) was superb and still ranks as my favorite steak in Vegas. Noticing the budget cuts again, the fancy table cloths have disappeared and while the tables are still nice, they're now just plain wood. Overall, an awesome dinner.
Out after dinner back onto Fremont Street and all the Nascar party events. Once again, the Fremont Street entertainment budget was waaaay down from last year. The fans were still there but even the free concert headliner was obviously less $$ than in the past years (actually. his singing was mediocre at best ).
Sunday was the big race day and we drove to the track early. It's amazing how many people drag tents, chairs and BIG BBQ grills and tailgate party all day before (and after) the race....too much work for me.
The race started off with the "Flying Elvi" parachuting onto the raceway...
followed by Mayor Oscar "Buy Me a Martini" Goodman, his showgirls and his martini glass. The National Anthem was done by the "Jersey Boys" cast members (awesome!) and an incredible fly over by the Thunderbirds! The crowds went wild at the first fly-over and surprisingly the Thunderbirds came back around for another fly-over and than a third fly-over with the jets peeling off one by one for an inverted roll...truly inspiring!
The race was as great as always (economy can't hurt this!) and in the end I was on my feet screaming my head off as Kyle Busch won the Shelby 427...and a handy $400 win on my sports bet for me.
The race was over and after all the congratulatory hugs from all our "Nascar neighbors", Darrell and I headed down the walkway towards our car...and we found this...the race's Shelby 427 Pace Car..and for only $47,000+ it too can be yours! Laugh all you want, but I WANT ONE!!!
Did we have fun? What do you think...
OK, now you have been to a Las Vegas Nascar race. Join us next year?
|
|