The Subway Fresh race is fairly new, but Phoenix Arizona (Avondale specifically) is a delightful place to be in April so I can see why it was added. The event sells out very early but the brokers always seem to have tickets anyway. Here are the best places to search for your tickets to this event:
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On Saturday before the big NASCAR Nextel race there is the Arizona Travel 200 which is a NASCAR Busch Series race that also takes place at Phoenix International Raceway. Sure, it’s considered the triple A ball version of NASCAR but the tickets are a lot cheaper and you can attend these events without having to miss church!
StubHub has all kind of tickets starting as low as $30.
We Have Seats does Stubhub one better by starting seats at $29
TicketsNow is worth taking a gander at as well while you’re at it
Here is some Busch Series trivia:
The NASCAR Busch Series is a stock car racing series owned and operated by NASCAR. It is NASCAR’s second division (often compared to Triple-A baseball), and is a proving ground for drivers who wish to step up to the organization’s top level, the Nextel Cup.
The series emerged from NASCAR’s old Sportsman division, which was formed in 1950 as NASCAR’s short track race division. It became the Late Model Sportsman series in 1968, and soon featured races on larger tracks, such as Daytona International Speedway.
The modern-day Busch Series was formed in 1982, when Anheuser-Busch sponsored a newly reformed late-model sportsman series with its Budweiser brand. It switched sponsorship to the Busch brand in 1984, and in 1986, was renamed from the Sportsman series to the Busch Grand National Series. Grand National was dropped from the series’ title in 2003.
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Since the early days of the Busch Series, many Cup drivers have used their days off to drive in the Busch Series. This can be for any number of reasons, most prominent or often claimed is to gain more “seat time”, or to familiarize themselves with the track. Examples of this would be the first ever winner of a Busch Series race, Dale Earnhardt, and the winner of the most races in Busch Series history, Mark Martin. In recent years, this practice has been termed “Buschwhacking” by those that criticize the practice, claiming that Cup drivers racing in the Busch Series takes away opportunities from the Busch Series regulars, drivers that are usually younger and less experienced. Proponents of this practice, however, claim that without the Cup “superstars” and the large amount of fan interest they attract, the series would cease to exist.
The big Checker Auto Parts 500 event from the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series taking place here in Phoenix is coming up fast. If you don’t have your tickets yet here is where I recommend you look:
StubHub has all kind of tickets starting as low as $98.
We Have Seats has tons of seats too starting with PIT passes (? — I don’t claim to understand that…) at $75
TicketsNow is worth taking a gander at as well while you’re at it
Here is some history on the race and its past winners from the wiki:
The Checker Auto Parts 500 is a NASCAR Nextel Cup stock car race held at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Arizona.
Past winners
* 2005 Kyle Busch
* 2004 Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (race extended to 315 laps due to green-white-checker finish)
* 2003 Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
* 2002 Matt Kenseth
* 2001 Jeff Burton
* 2000 Jeff Burton
* 1999 Tony Stewart
* 1998 Rusty Wallace
* 1997 Dale Jarrett
* 1996 Bobby Hamilton
* 1995 Ricky Rudd
* 1994 Terry Labonte
* 1993 Mark Martin
* 1992 Davey Allison
* 1991 Davey Allison
* 1990 Dale Earnhardt
* 1989 Bill Elliott
* 1988 Alan Kulwicki
NASCAR loves Phoenix. And that is good because Phoenix loves NASCAR right back. It’s a regular XOXOXO fest here folks. Anyway, there are several NASCAR events every year at the Phoenix International Raceway and they always end up selling out (or getting mighty close anyway.) Here are the places you should look online if you need tickets to one of these upcoming eventsand the box office doesn’t have the seats you hoped for:
StubHub has all kind of tickets starting as low as $19.
We Have Seats will sell you anything from cheap general admission seats to the warm up events at $5 to fancy seats on Sunday for hundreds
TicketsNow is worth taking a gander at as well while you’re at it
Here is some trivia about Phoenix International Raceway for you to chew on as well:
Location - Avondale, Arizona
Track length - 1 miles (1.6 kilometres)
Track shape - “D”-shaped Tri-Oval
Banking - Turns 1 and 2 - 11°
Turns 3 and 4 - 9°
Backstretch - 9°
Frontstretch - 3°
Major events - NASCAR Nextel Cup, NASCAR Busch Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Capacity - 76,800
Address - P.O. Box 13088, Avondale, AZ 85002Phoenix International Raceway, or just PIR, is a one mile tri-oval race track located in Avondale, Arizona. It opened in 1964, as the new home of major open-wheel racing in the Phoenix area, replacing the track at the Arizona State Fairgrounds as an automobile racing venue. Unfortunately, due to a change in focus by the track’s current owners, ISC, the Phoenix area’s long history of hosting Indy-style racing (only Indianapolis itself and Milwaukee have had more) came to an abrupt end in 2005, when PIR failed to host an Indy Racing League event for the first time. Ironically, stock car racing’s top series, NASCAR’s Nextel Cup, didn’t even run at PIR until 1988. Their inagural race was won by the late Alan Kulwicki, who debuted his Polish Victory Lap) here after taking the checkered flag.
PIR has a unique tri-oval shape, with a curve in middle of its backstreatch between turns two and three, commonly referred to as “the dogleg”. This exists because the original builders were constrained by both the rocky hills located on the property and their incorporation of an extenal road course and dragstrip into PIR’s design. Once nearby Firebird International Raceway became a regular stop on drag racing tours, PIR’s dragstrip was rarely used. The external road course, which was used mainly for private testing and as parking lot access roads during oval events, was later replaced by the current infield road circuit. Prior to construction of a tunnel under turn four in 2004-05, the only access to the PIR’s infield during events was via crossovers, where the old external road course and dragstrip intersected the oval. Once the tunnel was built, the crossovers were permanently sealed off.
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The infield road course, originally built for IMSA was most recently used by the Grand American Road Racing Association.
The oval also remains home to what was traditional called the Copper World Classic, a weekend of predominently open-wheel comptition with USAC midget and Silver Crown cars as well as modifieds. From 2002-04, the event was incorporated into early-spring the Indy Car Series / Indy Pro Series weekend, but with the departure of IRL, the Copper World event has returned to its original late-winter date on PIR’s racing schedule.
In 2005, the track hosted a second NASCAR Nextel Cup race event, replacing the spring race formerly held at Darlington Raceway, in South Carolina.
