Why are these guys here a week early? At a car track day with my buddy and these 4 haulers are sitting in Lot 6 outside the track.
Maybe because they home base on the west coast and diesel fuel is $4.50-5.00 a gallon right now and it was cheaper to park the trucks and fly home?
Some teams have their rigs driven to the next round immediately after the end of the current event. The mechanics arrive early enough to prep the bikes before the start of the weekend. If you are based in CA, driving NJ-->CA-->AL doesn't make sense if there is no reason to transport the bikes all the way back to your home shop. Even as a WERA novice, after racing in OK, my bike sat on an open trailer at a Sheraton parking lot in Dallas Mon-Thu while I was at work at a nearby office. Thursday afternoon, I re-hitched the trailer to my Exploder and went to Memphis for the next round. Only after Memphis did I return home to GA. Best part was my employer paid me mileage from ATL to Dallas, round trip (since I didn't fly or rent a car). Paid for all my racing.
When I was coaching on STT Staff I used to stay down there for 10 days because there was a TD weekend before the GNF, and we were able to get into the track Wednesday for the GNF. I would arrive at the track Friday for the TD weekend, then Sun-Mon-Tue I would stay down there in the RV. It is only a 6-7hr drive home, and I don't care about gas mileage. But I just didnt feel like driving back and forth. Driving the RV isnt fun.
