Black Friday has transcended a single day of cheap goods to become something more like the Six Weeks Of Sales — but it’s the best time to buy race car tickets if you’re trying to do it on the cheap. Here’s how I’ve done it the past few years.

You’re going to have to go into this with a game plan and know, roughly, what races you want to attend for the upcoming year — and you’ll have to see if they’re selling tickets yet.

Black Friday requires you strike a weird balance. You’ll get the best deals for events that have high enough demand to start selling tickets several months in advance, but not ones that are so high demand that they’ve already sold out. You’re more likely to get a good deal on a Canadian Grand Prix ticket than a Miami Grand Prix ticket, for example.

Sign Up For Mailing Lists

If there’s a particular circuit you like going to, sign up for that circuit’s mailing list. You’re probably not going to get deals from NASCAR proper, but you’ll likely be able to score something from Daytona International Speedway. They’ll usually give you advance notice for any sales, including necessary discount codes, purchase links, or access times. Most will just tell you that there’s going to be a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale on a certain date.

Set Up A Google Alert

If you’re really looking to go hard, set up Google Alerts for the event or track you have in mind. I usually just jumble key terms together, so my searches have looked like “COTA black friday” or “circuit gilles villeneuve cyber monday.” You’ll get email alerts if anything new pops up, which gives you a place to look.

If You Forget, Just Check The Website

You don’t have to get super crazy with alerts — I just like to because I am an absurdly detailed preparer. Use this blog as an excuse to go check out the websites for your favorite tracks and see if they’re advertising any sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or any of those other nondescript sale days in between.

A Note For The COVID Times

In the pre-COVID days, most tracks offered some sort of Black Friday or Cyber Monday ticket package. For example, I used to be able to buy season passes to COTA for around $250, which included access to everything from F1 to more local races held at the track. I could get cheap tickets to the Canadian Grand Prix — a weekend GA pass for under $75.

COVID has messed with a lot of that, though, so you’re a lot less likely to get cheap tickets for everything because there are still ongoing scheduling conflicts. So you may not find your ideal Black Friday sale this year, but you’ll likely be able to in the future.