Road Trip

PIMLICO Race Track - Baltimore, Maryland. The 132nd running of the Preakness Stakes.

What a scene.

I had heard stories, and I thought I knew what I was getting into, but when you finally get to the track and stand on the outside of it looking in towards the infield, you have no idea how big it really is and what actually takes place on the inside. Here's the rundown:

We left NYC after work on Friday around 5:30pm. I learned many new things on this trip, the first being never, under any circumstances, try to fit five grown men into a luxury sedan for more than ten minutes, let alone a 4 hour ride, my back and neck probably won't be the same, ever.

Right off the bat, the GPS system we were using was a little shady. Instead of taking us to the Holland or Lincoln tunnel, we were heading down the FDR drive south into the financial district, going through Brooklyn and Staten Island, etc. However, this segways into the second lesson I learned from this trip, always trust the GPS system, but we'll get into that a little later. After sitting in traffic for about an hour or so, and a couple prank phone calls here and there, we were finally on our way to Philadelphia to make the "Carey exchange". Seems like a pretty simple task, drive from NYC to Philly, drop off one Carey to pick up another. Wrong.

The GPS system, ever since we got on the Jersey Turnpike, was telling us to get off each and every exit. This can't be right, we all thought, and decided to completely under mind anything the GPS was telling us. I mean, it's a bunch of satellites and we are all fairly intelligent humans, man over machine, obvi. As we are getting close to Philly, the first Carey is calling Cannoli face every 5 minutes or so. "Just get on I-676" he says, every time. Fine. Philly is getting pretty close on the map according the the chicks voice on the GPS who sounds hot but we continue to ignore. We decide to call the second Carey, whom we will be picking up shortly and tell him to order a couple pizzas and some wings because we have not eaten all night and things could start to get rowdy. Luckily for me, my neck, lower back, and entire ass are completely numb by this point so I have no complaints.

"Uh, Cannoli Face, we are getting really close to Philly on the map and I see no I-676 anywhere". Turns out there was no I-676, unless you were on a different highway going down. (Little known fact, the I-95 Philly uses is completely different from the I-95 everyone else uses. And if you were ever wondering if the Jersey Turnpike and I-95 are the same, they're not, trust me). After we pass the last exit that would lead us to Philly, we just decide we will take the next exit and turn around. Luckily for us, the next exit was about 15 miles away and if we decided to do that we would be wasting about 45 minutes. Unanimous decision, we are skipping Philly (and the pizzas and wings), the other Carey would hop a ride with Cannoli Face and Co. (the kids the Carey in our car were going to ride with), and meet up with us in Delaware.

By the time we had decided where we would meet in Delaware, we had already driven through it, what a stupid state. Finally, we decide we absolutely have to eat and get off the third or fourth exit in Maryland and hop into Sluggers sports bar attached to a La Quinta. Speaking of scenes, I could describe to you the people inside this place, but again, that's a whole other post. About 30 minutes later, Cannoli Face and Co. show up, and we are finally united with the rightful Carey (and just 30 minutes outside Baltimore no less).

The next morning, we wake up at the butt crack of dawn to drive over to our buddies house who lives "walking distance" from the track. Ha! To pregame. Funnels and Black Eyed Susan's (the official Preakness drink) all over the place. We decide to head over to the track around 11:30, and because it's "walking distance" Ha! from the track, carrying 30 racks and coolers shouldn't be a big deal. Thank God the kid lives in a Hasidic Jewish community and everyone is returning from Sabbath while we are walking around drunk with beers and coolers. One of the nicer gentlemen even stopped to scold us and possibly have us arrested, but I won't get into that either. Our Carey decides that this is ridiculous, so we start to hitchhike. Personally, I never thought this would work in a million years but lo and behold, a nice 50 year old man who was obviously thinking it was a good idea to pick up four drunk idiots with beers and coolers and bring them to the track (he was the man) stopped and gave us a lift.

Getting out of the car, I was in awe. Again, I can't describe for you how big this thing but the race is 1 3/8 miles, and is only a single lap. So think about an oval with a circumference of 1 3/8 miles and having the entire middle area filled with people (I say at least 75,000-10,000 rowdy drunk college kids). It was the ultimate tailgate. The people are treated like cattle. You are herded into the fenced-in infield and there is no re-entry. We arrived around noon and the big race didn't start until about 5pm. Cops and security people are all around the perimeter of the infield on the outside of the fence just watching people urinate (sometimes into 30 rack boxes, oddly enough).

More funnels and Black Eyed Susan's continue and a couple food stand stops, bathroom breaks, and multiple table tops later, and its time to make my bets just a few minutes before the race starts. I'll save you the suspense, I lost all of them, but because I got to watch the race up close and personal it was all worth it. Kidding, that's actually impossible from the infield. We were on the last turn and the only way we knew a) that the race was going on, or b) where the horses were, was hearing the crowd cheer from the right, slowly make its way to us, suddenly hear the thunderous galloping of the pony's and seeing them for about 2 seconds. Suddenly the race was over (I guess) and I had to call a couple people back in NY to find out who won and what happened because I had no idea what was going on. Turned out to be one of the closest finishes in Preakness history, whatever.

After that, the rest of the day/night is somewhat blurry and it began to rain a little (the rain had held off for most of the day and it turned out to be absolutely perfect weather for this type of debauchery). Fights and fires were being started left and right, everyone finally spilled into the streets and we somehow finagled a cab back to our hotel.

All in all it was a great trip, and before you get too old, I strongly recommend you give Preakness a try, you will not regret it.