Motor Speedway with gray skies (although not any rain to start.) Still, we arrived at the track optimistic that we would be able to get a race in. We left around 8:50 a.m. and, after picking up credentials and snagging a shuttle bus (a converted school bus), found our seats around 10:50 a.m. (We did have to pause to see who was arriving on the helicopter pad. Turned out to be a couple of older ladies with no drivers among them.)We soon discovered that we had arrived at our driver staking out spot later than we would have hoped, thanks to our new spotter friend, a woman maybe in her 60s who quickly caught us up to speed on who had already gone through (although she did identify Michael Waltrip as Darryl.) We also had some spotters across the way, where Running Man had bee
n posted last year, although they were more interested in their Miller Lites and hassling Kyle Busch (who snuck by so fast while another driver was going by that we missed him.) Sadly, Running Man was no where to be seen, although Running Man Jr. took up the torch by chasing after a speeding Matt Kenseth. (The key is to flip back the hat, Jr.)Among those who went by: Denny Hamlin and Reed Sorenson
(who actually stopped to sign autographs, winning points from all of us). Jon took the best picture of the day of Michael Waltrip. Caption contest anyone?About 11:40 it seemed just about everyone who had gone in the direction of the hospitality tents had come back and since we were figuring the driver meeting would be about 12 or 12:15, we headed into the infield. On our way to find the media tent we ran into a black shirt/blue jean clad Jeff Gordon on a golf cart with no one around him, apparently taking the back way into the driver's meeting, which we soon realized was starting at noon. It felt like too much of a stalker move to whip out her camera so unfortunately Colleen didn't get any pictures.
We turned around the corner to see a huge line that had formed (the front way into the driver's meeting). Among those we saw and got pictures of: Joey Logano, Elliott Sadler, Robby Gordon
and Kasey Kahne.During driver introductions, we soon realized that we had a Kyle Busch fan in our midst. (Apparently everyone is a whiner EXCEPT for Kyle Busch.
)Also, will someone tell our Canadian friends that you don't cheer and hold up the Quebec flag when your driver (Patrick Carpentier) crashes and is out of the race?
The race was somewhat soured by Sherlock Homes kitty corner to us and Watson besides Colleen, who proceeded to light their pipes the entire race. (There was a more traditional cigarette smoker to the left of him.) At least our drivers were up front for most of the day. It started to sprinkle late in the race, then it would stop, and finally (with Joey Logano up in front) it started to come down. The race was well past the halfway mark at that point and Colleen figured they wouldn't make a huge effort to get it all in. When we heard the race had been called, we headed (under the stadium as far as we could go) to the car. It wasn't Kurt Busch and Michael Waltrip winning, but still, Colleen felt gipped.
It wasn't coming down nearly as hard as last year though, and at least this time we were prepared with ponchos that kept us mostly dry. We did have a bit of excitement as we passed the helicopter as Dale Jr. was hopping from golf cart to golf cart (apparently they called off the helicopters as he headed back down the hill shortly after he arrived.)
The bus wasn't at the pickup stop and we then passed two of them while walking to the car, so it appears walking was a good decision. Plus, we probably wouldn't have seen the SUVs running over the parking cones if we had taken the bus.
The long ride to Cracker Barrel was at least interesting thanks to the PRN post-race radio hosts who proceeded to talk about their Fourth of July plans, Shetland Ponies, and prostate cancer. We kid you not.
Race experience: B+
The race itself: B+
Cracker Barrel: B-
--POSTED BY COLLEEN
No comments:
Post a Comment