Friday morning, more floor tours, but this time, I was Captain of Orientation for 2 hours.  Of course, it’s starting to slow down some now, so being Captain isn’t a big deal.

Then it was off to the Sightseeing Tours.  Again, I hear people “poo-poo” the sightseeing as a waste of time, and why don’t met get more business done, and less of “this extra junk”.  You know how I feel about it…I’ve said time and again how much more business I do at the social events than I ever do anywhere else.  Sightseeing tours are the same way.  I remember going on a tour in Texas that I just picked at random.  I didn’t really see one that totally excited me, so I just picked one.  I ended up talking to several Operators in the course of that tour, and one of them is now a regular customer here!

But I was excited about this one…I had been led to believe that it involved something I’ve always wanted to do.  Our first stop was the Richard Petty Driving Experience.  Now, you KNOW what we were expecting, and when the bus pulled off at the exit for Lowes Motor Speedway, we got more excited!  But then we got the bad news…we were going to the Petty offices, not for a ride around the track.  Curses, foiled again!

But the tour at Petty was fascinating, as they had a number of actual NASCAR cars there that were being reconditioned for them to use them in their program.  Emi was excited, as they had both an Elliot Sadler and a Ryan Newman car there (being female, she cannot simply pick a favorite driver..,she has to have two!).  Since they do mostly Dodge and Chevy cars, there unfortunately wasn’t a Carl Edwards car there, but nothing is perfect.  Of course, I was also holding out hope that we would turn a corner somewhere in the garage and find the King himself standing there to greet us, but no such luck on that end either.

From there, we visited the Sam Bass Gallery (NASCAR’s official artist…wow.  I should have spent more time in art class, given what he can charge for a drawing!), and the Hendrick Motorsports complex.  Had some excitement there as well…we were listening to an explanation from one of their staff in the building that houses the Mark Martin and Dale Earnhart, Jr. teams.  When he was done, everyone headed down the hallway to look out on the work floor.  I was wandering around with some friends, and saw a familiar face walk in the front door…Mike Helton, the President of NASCAR!  I didn’t move fast enough, but I found out who can!  Jim Diebel from Hanover Holiday Tours (a staunch supporter of Jimmie Johnson) recognized him as fast as I did, and caught him going back out the front door for a quick picture.  I was going to ask for one as well, but you could tell that he really wasn’t in the mood for that stuff. But I did get to shake his hand, and say “thanks”, so that was neat.

The tour was conducted by Jennifer Parsley from Adventures in Motorsports Tours, a local Charlotte receptive that specializes in NASCAR Tours.  We got to talking, and I found out that her father, Roger, had led the tour the last time I was in Charlotte with North Carolina Motorcoach!  I still remember that tour, as Roger was able to tell some amazing Dale Earnhart Sr. stories, having grown up in Kannapolis with him, and the family is still very close to Martha Earnhart!  Roger was actually on the other coach, and came over to say “hi!”.  Small world, eh?

It just goes to show…if you have something you know very well, find a way to offer it to Motorcoaches!  AIM’s tours can be personalized for anything a group wants, even including meet-and-greets with NASCAR people, a visit to a Pit Crew Training Facility and more.  You can really tell how much they love their work!  And they understand the overwhelming lesson of this year…don’t just sell the Operators.  Jennifer invited a bunch of us to come back down for one of the races at Lowes this year, and she’ll put together a complete package for us.  You know, we may just take her up on that yet!

Friday evening was “relax time” for us…the gang went out to dinner at our annual tradition of a Mexican restaurant (long story…don’t ask!).  We got back in time to join the evening’s activities in progress, and got the best of both sides.  Private time with friends, and networking time with the attendees.  Who could ask for anything more?