Arriving at Union station in downtown LA, a beautifully restored train station, I immediately checked in my baggage…only to shortly thereafter hear an announcement that my train was delayed, and they couldn’t tell us when to expect the train. UGH!!
After a few phone calls to my friend, waiting for me in San Diego, and a trip to the Metrolink desk to find out how close THEIR trains would get me to San Diego, I approached customer service about getting my luggage back so that I could pursue an alternative route to San Diego, only to be told that there was no way to get my luggage back once it was checked. I didn’t have to wait for the train, but my luggage was going to.
As this was 6pm, and our flight out of San Diego left at 6am the next morning, the thought of taking an alternative form of transportation to San Diego and just hoping my luggage got there in time for my flight made me a bit nervous, not to mention having to eke out time to go to the train station to pick up my erstwhile luggage and losing yet more sleeping time.
Finally around 6:30 pm, they announced that the train would be arriving around 7:15pm, a mere 2 hours late…turns out a car accident on the tracks up the way caused the delay. What we found out when we boarded was that they just basically cancelled the 5:10 train I was to be on, and combined the waiting 5:10 train and delayed 6pm train passengers on to one train. So it was a little bit tight for a while!!!
They say once the train gets to the ocean en route to San Diego, it runs along the ocean and the view is magnificent. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know, as it was pitch dark outside when we got there. Oh, well!!
After arriving in San Diego and visiting with my friend, we crashed, only to have to get up at 4am to hop on the shuttle to the airport….starting my race weekend off with 3 hours sleep before leaving LA, and 3 hours sleep that night before getting on a plane in San Diego…sometimes working nights sucks!!
The flight itself was uneventful, and we arrived in Indianapolis ALMOST on time…but it took 45 minutes for them to get the baggage out to us, and by the time we took the shuttle to the rental place and picked up the car, a black PT Cruiser, it was 4pm…too late to venture down to the Office Depot to see Carl giving out school supplies to needy kids.
So we decided to drop our stuff at the hotel, then head out to Oreilly Raceway Park for the Silver Crown race. We found the hotel easily enough…and added bonus, it was right beside a truck stop and truck wash that we soon noticed a lot of Busch series haulers were pulling up into for one last fill-up and a wash before heading out to ORP (it'll ALWAYS be IRP to me!!). Of course, it was the Scotts green 60 hauler that caught my attention first…then the 16 hauler…later that night, I spent some time at our hotel room window, watching all the haulers going through the car wash, but there was no time now to do so, as we wanted to get to the track.
Despite the fact that Carl would not be running the race due to his injured thumb, we knew he would be there supporting his team, because that’s the type of guy he is. We chose not to get pit passes when we found out they were more than twice as much as the $20 I was quoted over the phone, but it didn’t matter…they did a post-qualifying, pre-race driver signing that all fans were invited down onto the track for, so I got to see Carl up close for some pics anyway.
We also chose seats right in turn 4 across from the 199 pit stall (Carl’s car) and watched the activity around there through qualifying. A surprise Tony Stewart sighting on pit lane had my TS fan friend extremely happy.
The race was great fun, and it only took a few laps to forget Carl was not in the car as we rooted for his driver to go get ‘em!!! He finished 4th, very respectable. Unfortunately, it did not occur to me that Carl might be the spotter for his driver, as I later found out, so I didn’t have my scanner with me to listen in. Oh, well, 20/20 hindsight and all that.
All in all, a fun evening, but as we were both short on sleep, and were pretty much asleep before our heads hit our respective pillows after the afore-mentioned hauler-watching out of the hotel room.
Friday dawned cloudy and rainy, so we slept in, then went out and ran some errands, but as rain loomed, we chose to skip going to the track for practices. This turned out to be a good idea, as rain washed out all track activity, and without pit passes, which the Brickyard provides to only a select few suite ticket holders, there would have been not much to see. So we rested up for the rest of the weekend’s activities, deciding not to go to the Truck race that night. Might as well save our energy for the next 2 days, which would be busy.
More to come...of course!!!
All in all, a fun evening, but as we were both short on sleep, and were pretty much asleep before our heads hit our respective pillows after the afore-mentioned hauler-watching out of the hotel room.
Friday dawned cloudy and rainy, so we slept in, then went out and ran some errands, but as rain loomed, we chose to skip going to the track for practices. This turned out to be a good idea, as rain washed out all track activity, and without pit passes, which the Brickyard provides to only a select few suite ticket holders, there would have been not much to see. So we rested up for the rest of the weekend’s activities, deciding not to go to the Truck race that night. Might as well save our energy for the next 2 days, which would be busy.
More to come...of course!!!
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