Hotel rooms are not plentiful in the immediate area of the track, so the ones that are available go for what can best be politely called premium rates. Those who don't want to help the motel owners put their kids through law school find other accommodations. Your intrepid scribe, for instance, is 20 miles south of Dover near Milford in a roadside inn with rooms that look like a place Matlock might stash a secret witness. By the way, there has been no sign of Gil Thorp in the Milford vicinity. The hotel crunch is one reason the Dover track is surrounded by campers, which fill up the fields off the highways on either side of the track.
Some campers arrive weeks in advance to stake out prime spots.
Vendors set up a midway offering the latest in racing fashions and necessities. The ice concession is particularly coveted. Drive about 50 miles south of the track and there's Rehoboth Beach. If Myrtle Beach is the Charlotte Motor Speedway of beaches, then Rehoboth is the Dover. When you order, the machine spits out plain vanilla and the server then squirts on liquid flavoring and stirs with a blender.