Rental Cars

Rental cars… these deserve an entry all their own. When I picked up my rental car last Thursday I was supposed to get something comparable to my Camry. Since when is a Toyota Avalon comparable to a Camry? My Camry didn’t come with dual thermostats or warnings of icy conditions once I started the car, but who am I to judge what ‘comparable’ means? Which reminds me of a story…

I am no longer traveling to the races for work (trying to juggle those trips and a family is rather involved and more work than I want) but I have gone to about 35 races for GPT since October 2002. I have had my fair share of rentals cars, most of which were pretty memorable for one reason or another. So for those of you who are picking up a rental car for you next vacation, let me offer you a free travel tip: When the rest of the passengers on your flight head over to baggage claim to watch an empty carousel and wait for their luggage to appear, you should skip over to the rental car counters. Chances are no one will be in line since they are all waiting for their bags. In the time it takes you to get the car (which is inexplicably long no matter where you go), the bags will have arrived and all those passengers who got their bags first will now be getting in line for a car. Once you have the keys, waltz on over to baggage claim, where you can pick up your luggage without having to wait. Before you know it you’ll be zipping along the roads, yelling at the GPS because it is more lost than you are, while everyone else is still in line for their car. However, if the car company is off-site from the airport and you aren’t traveling with someone who can wait for the bags while you get the car, I can only offer this advice: Good Luck.

Such was the case when I went to Phoenix for the NASCAR race a few years ago. The big chain companies like Hertz, Avis and Enterprise are shamefully expensive so my company booked a rental car at a more reasonable rate through a company whose name I can’t remember but it is along the line of Jack’s Pretty Good Wheels. The office was in a rather shabby location and instead of a paved lot with numbered stalls, the cars were parked every which way on a gravel lot which was more dirt then gravel, if you get my drift. There were two people working the counter. One of them had no teeth so he was hard to understand. The other employee seemed to be moving along at a pretty good pace until the cops came in. They asked for Dawn and I thought, “I’ve only been in Phoenix for an hour and a half (waiting for luggage at the airport, which is a story in and of itself). What could I have possibly done wrong?” That was when the woman behind the counter said, “I’m Dawn” and then left to take care of the “incident that occurred last night,” thus leaving a long line of clients to one man who was slower than molasses on a cold day. When I finally got my car (I think the sun was setting) I was surprised to find the kind of car I had gotten. I was supposed to get an economy car – you know, a Geo Metro or something comparable. I had no idea that a Jeep was comparable to a Geo Metro… So I climbed in the car and drove out of the gravel parking lot hoping that the race weekend ahead of me was nothing like my experience in Phoenix thus far.

I also remember my rental car from the Kansas NASCAR race. I was hoping for something subtle – nothing that would stand out. So of course it would only make sense that I got a banana-yellow PT Cruiser. As you can imagine, I never ‘lost’ my car in any parking lot that weekend… And then there was the Richmond race last September. I was driving the clients to the race in a minivan, which only had me that much more nervous since I’ve been in those big tour buses and the drivers don’t give anyone an inch. I was imagining the nightmare I was getting into being a minivan in a sea of buses trying to leave the race (it really worked out well though because the attendants moved me to a different location near the gate for that very reason). Getting the minivan was a totally different story since I needed one with two rows of three seats and they had given away the only other one on the lot with those seat arrangements earlier (even though I called to confirm they would have the one I wanted that morning). I think I was the last person to leave the airport trying to fix that issue. I also requested a GPS – I have been to one too many races to know that the police can re-route traffic at the last minute and since I was driving in an unfamiliar location I could easily get lost if my directions differed from what the police decided to do. I think the GPS was more lost than I was trying to figure out how to get to my hotel from the airport. And speaking of buses and the track – do I have bus stories to share!

I actually have a lot of great stories to share from my trips (you can’t go to a NASCAR, Formula One or MotoGP race without coming back with stories!) But all these stories would fill page after page so I won’t share them here, but if something comes up in my life that warrants sharing one I’ll do so. Well, since I mentioned earlier that my experience at the Phoenix Airport was a story, I’ll share that with you:

Phoenix International Airport: Once you get off the plane you can expect to spend several hours wandering aimlessly around the baggage claim area, with thousands of other confused people, trying to find someone that can tell you what baggage claim carousel your luggage will be on. Electronic signs above each carousel post flight details so you would assume this would help you find your carousel number - don’t be fooled by this since the flight details are updated once a week. And don’t even bother heading over to the information desk to see if they can help you – all they will do is hand you a map of the Phoenix area. Every so often a voice will come over the loudspeaker announcing the carousel number for a particular flight. This is only announced once for each flight, and since this place is full of confused people who can’t stop talking loudly, you can easily miss it. At this point you may think the situation is hopeless, and it is, but I will share with you how you find the carousel your luggage will be on. First, look for some stressed out flight attendants behind a desk near the carousels - there should be a long line of passengers at the desk (this line could easily be confused with passengers standing around the carousels since they all run into each other). Once you have made your way up to the front, give them your flight number and they will check a computer screen and let you know the carousel number. At this point you may be thinking “it is smooth sailing from here,” but don’t get your hopes up just yet since each carousel has at least 23 flights worth of luggage on it. You can imagine the fun of trying to work your way through the crowd to get your bags, and it the process you might get run over by someone who has already found their bags, but this is all part of the Phoenix Airport Experience. Once you have your bags you need to get outside. This may seem like a simple task but remember, this is the Phoenix Airport Exprience. Surrounding the baggage claim area are waist-high glasses walls and there are only two openings through these walls through which you can leave the baggage claim mess. And trying to find these openings while getting through the crowd is no small task. Once you determine if you are to leave the doors through the South Entrance or North Entrance (I won’t help you here since you need to have some fun of your own) you wait with some several hundred thousand people as they look for their shuttles. This too is a mess, but at this point you don’t care since you at least have your bags. Once you leave the airport you can buy a t-shirt that reads “I’ve survived the Phoenix Airport”