Our Setup
Rattlesnake Hill tickets at the Phoenix International Raceway cost a small fraction as much as tickets into the raceway grandstands, but you get a lot more freedom of movement and, I think, a better view. (I've never seen this race from inside the track, so I don't know that for sure.) The tickets allow you into the fence that surrounds the hill. Once there, you can park yourself anyplace on the hill you want, and the only limiting factor is whether somebody beat you to your spot and how high you feel like climbing. Some people set up really elaborate mini-camps with canopies covering grills and buffet layouts marked by flags flying from flagpoles they carried in themselves. Other people just find themselves a rock. You can bring in coolers full of food if you want, but you have to buy your alcohol from an on-site vendor who sells cans of Coors or Miller Lite for $14 each. Unfortunately, the only food they sell is those big pretzels, and I don't really like big pretzels.
Here, you can see a picture I took from the bottom of the hill of Robin about halfway through the race when I went down to buy a couple of $14 Miller Lites. Robin is sitting about 55 feet up the hill (according to Google Earth elevation measurements) on a flat spot along the ATV road that NBC TV people use to haul their camera equipment to the top. (NBC likes to use the hill's summit as a camera vantage point for transitional shots.) This is maybe 20 feet lower than we sat last time, but the hill is steep, and we didn't feel like climbing any more. We bought those umbrellas to attach to our regular camp chairs specifically for this race. She's wearing noise cancelling headphones, because even on a hill outside the track, a NASCAR race is loud. She has earphones inside the headphones, which are connected to a little radio tuned to the race coverage on MRN radio. Our little radios are kind of cheap, and reception wasn't that good. Also, the MRN feed was about five seconds behind reality, but still, it was good enough to keep us in the loop.
Our Setup
Rattlesnake Hill tickets at the Phoenix International Raceway cost a small fraction as much as tickets into the raceway grandstands, but you get a lot more freedom of movement and, I think, a better view. (I've never seen this race from inside the track, so I don't know that for sure.) The tickets allow you into the fence that surrounds the hill. Once there, you can park yourself anyplace on the hill you want, and the only limiting factor is whether somebody beat you to your spot and how high you feel like climbing. Some people set up really elaborate mini-camps with canopies covering grills and buffet layouts marked by flags flying from flagpoles they carried in themselves. Other people just find themselves a rock. You can bring in coolers full of food if you want, but you have to buy your alcohol from an on-site vendor who sells cans of Coors or Miller Lite for $14 each. Unfortunately, the only food they sell is those big pretzels, and I don't really like big pretzels.
Here, you can see a picture I took from the bottom of the hill of Robin about halfway through the race when I went down to buy a couple of $14 Miller Lites. Robin is sitting about 55 feet up the hill (according to Google Earth elevation measurements) on a flat spot along the ATV road that NBC TV people use to haul their camera equipment to the top. (NBC likes to use the hill's summit as a camera vantage point for transitional shots.) This is maybe 20 feet lower than we sat last time, but the hill is steep, and we didn't feel like climbing any more. We bought those umbrellas to attach to our regular camp chairs specifically for this race. She's wearing noise cancelling headphones, because even on a hill outside the track, a NASCAR race is loud. She has earphones inside the headphones, which are connected to a little radio tuned to the race coverage on MRN radio. Our little radios are kind of cheap, and reception wasn't that good. Also, the MRN feed was about five seconds behind reality, but still, it was good enough to keep us in the loop.