Big Red Rocked Richmond
The Big Red crew finished a fabulous weekend at Richmond Raceway on Sunday with the packing and loading chores and then a long drive home. None of us were very sprite as the three days just about did us in.
Those of you that regularly read these pages know that I put a great deal of stock in statistics and Big Red's record book. Over the weekend, we broke just about every conceivable record: most sales for weekend, most sales for week, largest day, largest race and largest race day. You could even break it down further as funnel cake sales and corn dog sales were also both records.
Part of the reason was the Denny Hamlin race on Thursday night, a new event for Richmond. In the past, I've suffered through Thursdays with sales of like $86. Not this week however. I knew it would be better with a race rather than just practice sessions. So I had Tank, sister Jean and Gene working. But I had no concept of how well we'd do. It was more like the results of a Nationwide race. Then on Friday, we did better than most Nationwide races. I had the same four of us, plus Mike came down from Woodbridge and Laura got there just before the race started.
On Saturday, I had a full crew. Peggy, Chuck, and Ryan joined us to replace Jean and Gene who had to be back at the farm.
The crew was awesome all weekend and only late on Saturday did we get a long line. But not nearly as long as I've seen there before. Running the way we did, the line turned quickly. And at the end of the day, by far our largest day ever.
The most surprising thing to me for the weekend was our volume of footlong corn dogs. Even though they sell for $5 instead of the $3 we've charged for regular ones in the past, we still sold more than we've ever sold before. Obviously that added to our successful sales volume also.
Our only real problem was that my wireless credit card machine died on Thursday--probably the power cord--and we had to do the old fashioned swipe on the 3-part form. Hopefully, a new cord will be here shortly and we can start the process of punching in all of those credit card sales. That alone will take several hours.
Of course, I did some dodging of weather on Wednesday night as there were tornadoes all over the place and one passed nearby. I didn't sustain any damage but the 300 foot Lipton Tea banner that hangs on the Commonwealth Tower above my tent was torn off the tower and destroyed.
For me, I'm off to Woodbridge in about an hour for a 3-game homestand starting tonight. Tomorrow's game opens at 10 AM with something like 3,500 kids expected.
I'll get back to the farm early Thurday morning after the game Wednesday night and hope to leave for Kentucky on Friday for a several time postponed trip to see Jason, Nancy and the kids.
Reports to follow.
