So we were in Myrtle Beach on vacation last week and decided to take in the Nascar Bojangles 500 from Darlington Raceway. We were staying on the beach and decided we would rent a room in Florenceville which was only 15 minutes from the raceway and about an hour and a half from Myrtle Beach so we wouldn't have to drive back in heavy traffic late at night. The Bojangles 500 starts at 7 so I figured it wouldn't be over until close to 11.
On a side note we stayed at Sandy beach resort in Myrtle Beach which was really nice and only about $100 a night this time of year with a full kitchen included. Also, side note #2 beer is only $16 for a 24 at Walmart in South Carolina as opposed to $13 for a six pack here in Newfoundland.... life can be cruel at times.
So we left for Florenceville around noon, had a snack and got to the Comfort Inn around 2. The place seemed ok from the outside but not great, the desk guy checked us in and spoke broken engish, I thought it was strange but moved on. Unfortunately he forgot to check if our room was cleaned and as a result we walked into a small, hot, dirty, dingy, crappiest hotel room I have even seen (and ranked it accordingly on tripadvisor). Seriously, the toilet looked like a public washroom at the end of a metallica concert. I chased down the closest room cleaning lady and she said the guy shouldn't have checked us in but she would be right down to clean it, and she did come down right away.
At this point it was around 3 so I figured we would head down to the raceway to check on the parking situation and whatnot. I had been reading up and there is a large grassy field for parking but I hate crowds so that wasn't going to work for me. We saw the local PTA were offering their school lot to park in for $10 and we took them up on it. They said it was only about 1/2 mile to the track, as it turned out it was even less than that. A good thing considering we had a cooler to drag packed with beer, water and snacks. The locals showed us a short cut and in about 5 minutes we were in through the gates. All along the way people were offering their driveways to park in for $20..... yes the USA is the land of opportunity.
So at about 4 we were at the raceway, went around to some of the booths, got a demo of the new Meguiars DA polisher that you use on the drill, got and freebies that were available (toy cars, bbq sauce, ponchos, shirts etc...) got some pictures signed by the Jeff Burton pit crew and made our way to our seats at about 5:30. We were seated in Tyler Tower row 19, the seats seemed pretty good.
So a concert was followed by driver intros, multiple other niceties, anthem etc.... I have to tell you about the people sitting next to us. There was a guy to our right who looked like an Italian mob guy. At one point another guy got in his way trying to find his seat and he told him to sit the F%^$ down. The other guy lipped back a bit and the italian like guy says "what the F%$# are you gonna do, we both know you ain't gonna do s&*^ so sit the F^&* down..... and he sat." It was intense but fun none the less. There also was a 12 year old in front of us who knew everything there was to know about Nascar, he was annoying but bothering other people so I didn't really care.
Anyway as it turns out this was the most boring race in Nascar history, we watched 300 laps and there was only one yellow flag for debris on the track..... ONE YELLOW FLAG IN 300 LAPS!!! It was like a parade with Kyle Bush leading the way the entire time. So we had an important decision to make.....
1) Stay till the end of the race (360 laps) and fight traffic back to the roach motel or
2) leave this boring race and go back to our nice room at Myrtle Beach
Since my better half said she would drive back to Myrtle Beach we left..... we never spent one single minute at our crappy hotel in Florenceville and felt great in our decision, even through we got gouged on the rate for a room we never used. We had some fun, watched 90% of a Nascar race and had a good nights sleep.....
Here is the video evidence....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQLckXgrm8Q&feature=youtu.be
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