Ep. 355 | Lissette Deschamps (NASCAR security)

Something else maybe folks wouldn't be aware of, and I don't think I was until Amanda maybe mentioned it in our conversation of wanting to do this podcast, is s- what security would be involved in, is she mentioned weather.

Like, if there's-

Mm-hmm

... weather delays or postponements or whatever that may be.

So I'm curious if you could walk us through and explain what is security's role when things at the racetrack maybe do get postponed or there is weather in the area.

What role do you all play in that?

Uh, well, we can use Kansas as a great example.

So, [clears throat] so it, it kind of makes it a little difficult, right? Because, um, you think about it, right? We have all these security guards at gates, right, that are supposed to be monitoring the gate, but then we're on a lightning hold, and everyone's supposed to seek shelter, right? So here we are trying to make sure that we are protecting, um, our staff, our employees, to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do, but then we also want the gate manned as well, because we don't want any, you know, um- ...

anyone coming into the gate that's not supposed to.

So it does create a little bit of some chaos to make sure.

So what we do is we typically try to lock as many gates as we can, except for one open, um, so we have an entry and exit point for there.

Sometimes it's a little bit difficult 'cause, you know, teams want to still work even though we're on a lightning hold, and it really depends on, I say, where we're at and what's happening.

You know? Like, obviously, uh, Pocono is one of those tracks where there's no movement, right? I think it was, like, last year, not this year, last year, that we were on total lockdown because of the lightning.

It makes our job difficult.

It makes everyone's a little difficult because we wanna make sure that everyone is safe, but we understand that the teams also wanna eat, and their food is in the garage.

So we just basically work with, uh, competition and to make sure that we're doing what they'd like us to do, and if we're allowing the teams in, we're allowing the teams in, but it's underneath, uh, their direction.

So we, we all have to come together at that point and work together.

If a race is, let's say it's postponed, not just delayed, and everybody's sitting there, is there anything, any involvement of getting people in and out of the track then, of trying to f- filter traffic or where the gates are, getting fans out and, and all of that?

Yeah.

So we basically evacuate everything at that point, unless they can find shelter.

Obviously, we don't want to direct someone to where their shelter is, right? They need to choose their own shelter, uh, especially when it comes over the broadcast system that we need to shelter in place.

Um, 'cause I never wanna be held liable for putting you, Kelly, in some place you're not supposed to be, and then lightning gets struck, right? So we just basically ask them to vacate the area and, and seek shelter wherever they choose that shelter to be, as long as it's not within our controlled areas, which is the garage and pit road.

Um, and kinda like this weekend, I don't know if you watched on TV or not, like, so Saturday during the truck race, right? So the trucks were impounded on pit road.

Typically, we would have to be out there just to kinda make sure that nothing is happening with the trucks.

Um, but luckily for us this weekend, the officials were in their cars, so they just sat out on pit road, uh, during the rain delay and watched the trucks, so we didn't have to, to be out in the rain, um, so we could handle other stuff.