NASCAR folks living the travel dream

LAS VEGAS -- If you hang around NASCAR for any length of time, you will hear somebody say the phrase "living the dream."

I have no idea who started it or why, but a lot of people use it as a stock sardonic reply to the idea that some of the people who think having a job in racing is a dream gig don't have any real idea that it's not all sunshine and lollipops all of the time.

This year during Speedweeks, the track public relations office had a sign on the wall with that phrase on it. It's to the point now that some folks will just say "LTD" and everybody knows what that means.

I say all of that today because the snow that fell overnight in Charlotte the return trip from Sunday's race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway has hardly turned into a "dream" for a lot of the NASCAR folks.

Several of the race teams delayed the departure of their own planes from Sunday night until in the daylight hours of Monday to give conditions time to improve before trying to get into Concord, which is where most of the NASCAR air fleet is based.

That may not sound like a big deal, but that's several hundred people who had to spend an extra 12 hours in Las Vegas about 2,700 miles from home. Work they would be doing today back at the teams' shops will have to be rescheduled and all of those people had to be fed and housed, causing the teams' additional expense.

Some teams fly most of their personnel commercially, especially on trips this far west. There are also dozens and dozens of people who work in the media, public relations and other industry-related jobs who were scheduled to go out on overnight flights late Sunday. Most of them, at least the ones to Charlotte, were canceled and I heard several people saying Sunday night they were being told it will be Tuesday -- at the earliest -- before they can expect to get out now.

(Before you even say it, this isn't about me. As of about 9 a.m. Monday, my flight home is still supposed to leave on schedule. Knock on wood.)