"Be ready, be ready, be ready. Green, green, green!" The 36 drivers in the starting field for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Ford 200 race their trucks into the first turn of Homestead-Miami Speedway. My job, for the next two hours or so as Rich Bickle's spotter, is to keep the driver and his No. 15 Ford out of trouble. It doesn't take long to start punching the clock.
"There's a spin down low in front of you," I say, mashing my radio button in an instant as Terry Cook turns sideways down the apron in the middle of the first turn. "Stay high, stay high! No yellow, no yellow, keep digging."
Bickle swings high to the outside and stays in the throttle, racing by a number of trucks slowing down because of the incident. Now three-wide and up against the backstretch wall, Bickle's red Ford rockets by nearly a dozen trucks before he's clear entering turn 3. Two laps later, it's back to work as we speed off of turn 4.
Again, I'm talking to my driver. "One spinning down low, stay high, stay up there. Clear. Good job, buddy. Yellow is out. Backing it down, checking up, checking up."
This is just the first four-lap segment of the 134 laps that will make up the race. If this is any indication, it's going to be a long day.
Early RiserIn reality, it has already been a long two days. While fans are focused on Friday's race, my duties as spotter start when the garage opens on Thursday at 7 a.m. A 5 a.m. wake-up call at the hotel and a trip through early morning Miami traffic, fueled by a couple cups of coffee, are initially on tap. Halfway through the '02 season, NASCAR mandated that whenever each driver takes his car onto the track, he must have a spotter, except for quali-fying. The first order of business once the garage is open is a mandatory spotters' meeting so that NASCAR can make sure each team is represented.
On this morning, NASCAR official Randy Kiser convenes the meeting outside the Goodyear Tire compound at 8 a.m. There, Kiser takes roll call, welcomes everyone to the final event, and goes over a few basic rules of the new Miami track. Afterward, each spotter signs for a spotter's pass, in this case a small pink sticker with the letter "R" on it that is to be affixed to your race credential. Without this pass, you won't be allowed access to the roof above the press box on the main straight where the spotters' stand is located.
Time For Practice NASCAR spotters get plenty of exercise walking to and from the spotters' stand three or four times a day. At places like Daytona, Talladega, or Kansas, the walk can be a mile or more. At Miami, there's a tunnel under turn 1 that cuts my stroll on this day to about 11/42 mile.
The elevator ride to the top of the grandstand reveals a magnificent Florida morning. Bright sunshine and warm ocean breezes greet me as I survey the new 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway layout. I spotted the first NASCAR Busch Series race here in 1995, back when the track was squared off in the corners like Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and it seems like each time we race here, the racing surface has been reconfigured. The original track was dreadful, and recent upgrades have made it better. Track officials say the new layout, which from the roof looks like the old Atlanta Motor Speedway, will be better. We'll see.