WEDNESDAY -- Arriving, Settling in, and the Truck Race.
This is being written in an RV, en route back from Bristol to Iowa, 55 MPH “Bessie speed” to keep the fuel mileage as reasonable as possible (8 miles to the gallon versus 6 or 7 if we get to 65 MPG)…what better way to pass the time than to put my race weekend memories down, while they are still fresh.
As many of you know, I’ve been to lots of races (and have the credit card bills to prove it!), but one crown jewel has eluded me in my 10 years as a NASCAR fan.
Bristol. But no more. Thanks to my honey, Jeff, I not only am no longer a Bristol virgin, but for the second time in as many months I’ve been at a race where MY GUY won!!! AND in spectacular fashion. How’s THAT for a date?? (Actually, 3 of the 5 race weekends I’ve attended, Carl won…and the other 2 [Atlanta and Infineon] he was in contention and just had bad luck, or a parts failure—the engine IS a big part of it all. LOL) It’s a good season to be an Edhead.
I’ll skip over the gory details involving watching the Hauler Parade from the gutter (o-kay, so we were sitting on lawn chairs, most of us, in the gutter, but still…) and other often alcohol-fueled adventures in camping (it’s BRISTOL BABY!! Did I say that already????), or watching the Shrub win yet another Truck race (which I almost didn’t mind, since I was actually at BRISTOL!!!!).
I won’t mention the fun of travelling with 3 guys in a 20 + year old RV (ol’ Bessie, I named her, for the purpose of the weekend) which surprisingly served us quite well….Did 55 MPH the whole way, resulting in 16 hours on the road, plus 7-8 hours in between napping in a Walmart parking lot in Corbin, KY. No use pulling into a campground at 3 am, is there??
After setting up camp on Wednesday, we all headed down to the track, with the help of Raceway Ministries, as the owner of the RV is temporarily handicapped (ice in February got him, and he is still on the mend). They were wonderful people who made sure he at least had a ride to and from the track each day (they kept insisting all of us accept rides, and we did a couple of times, but felt guilty doing so, being able-bodied. Although by weekend’s end, and at least one trip on foot up Holy Hill, we all felt slightly disabled! LOL), even if it was just a ride from the track to the shuttle, then down from the campground entrance…with Bristol’s hills, he would never have made it otherwise. Thanks Bubba and crew for taking such good care of us!!
The truck race was awesome in that it was my first Bristol race live, and even though the Shrub won it (GO Johnny Benson!! But it was not to be), I had a great time. My boyfriend Jeff proved his prophetic powers by predicting that Jimmy Johnson would wreck out before the race was over, and we watched that developing down the backstretch as he lost it, got it back, lost it again…and eventually just spun right out. THAT made us laugh uproariously (well, all except the Jimmy fan in the bunch, of couse!)
That night, worn out from our travels, we slept soundly, in preparation for the next day’s fun.
THURSDAY – The Bristol Hauler Parade
To Fanfest or not to Fanfest
After spending much of the day at the campground, just relaxing and meeting our neighbors, neighbors Jeff and Brian knew from last year (many renew yearly the same site), we headed into Bristol to meet up with the man we purchased our tickets from. The intention was to do that, then go downtown to see some of the Bristol Family Funfest things going on, but we got to visiting, and others joined the group, and before we knew it, we missed the Fun and it was time to find a spot to view the hauler parade. This was something I had really been looking forward to seeing, having heard about it in past years, and I wasn’t going to miss it.
We were misinformed that you could NOT sit in the track and watch them park the haulers (I’d love to see them park those puppies in that tiny track!! It just boggles the mind how they fit both series haulers in there…later we found out we could have, that the track was open for that purpose---I’ll remember that next year!!) so we found ourselves a piece of curb (gutter) and parked our lawn chairs to enjoy the show.
What a spectacle that is!!! All those haulers decked out, blaring their horns and people hanging out the windows, waving at the crowd…AWESOME!! Definitely worth doing.
After it was all over, we packed up the car and joined the crowd for the hour or more long ride back to the track (we weren’t THAT far away, but the sheer numbers of fans that had come out was mind-boggling…and traffic-jamming….) The Aflac ducks had fun watching the parade, but were glad to get back to the campground.
FINALLY back at the campsite, we spent a bit of time troubleshooting where the antifreeze leak was on the car…after so long in traffic, it had overheated a bit, and apparently a hose was loose, so when we finally started moving, even though it cooled down, the antifreeze that leaked blew back onto the engine and all that, causing that sickly-sweet smelling smoke that only antifreeze can cause. Troubleshooting done, we just enjoyed the evening (and even the stumbling entertainment of some who had over-imbibed, knowing those people were going to pay for it the next day! LOL).
FRIDAY - Bristol Nationwide Race
Deflated dre...err, tires, Wandering Edheads, and Holy Hill!!
Finally, one of the races I’d been really looking forward to all week. The LAST Nationwide race I had attended, coincidentally with Jeff, Carl had won the race…would our luck hold?
After dropping the other 2 off at the seats, Jeff and I headed up to our seats in Earnhardt Terrace to watch Cup qualifying…nice seats, cupholder and all, and we and the Aflac ducks enjoyed seeing Carl FINALLY get a pole this season…YAY, now he’ll be in the Shootout next year!!.
We skipped Nationwide qualifying as we had to go find the registration booth for the NASCAR Foundation Track Walk to report in for our track walk the next day….you’d think that would be easy, but at first we had the directions “Outside the main grandstand” (just which side is the main grandstand at Bristol??? It’s basically a bowl!! LOL) and then we found a flyer with more specific instructions, which we proceeded to misread as sign up was at Gate 9 (turns out it was, but only right before the track walk Saturday morning). However, there IS no marked Gate 9. It was the track entrance (where the haulers drive in), and, we found out, no-one there knew anything about the Trackwalk sign-up. We were then directed back up the hill to the Bruton Smith building, which we had passed on the way there on the tram, to enquire there…and FINALLY got some good directions…but in the end we circled the track once on foot inside, then again via tram and golf cart on the outside to find it. Thank God this wasn’t Daytona or Talladega!! How about some clearer directions next time, folks!!! LOL
The plus side of this “adventure”, I’ll call it, for lack of a better term, is that I finally got the “lay of the land” at Bristol in my head…I mean, I saw EVERY square inch of it!! LOL Having never been at a track as small (yet massive!) as Bristol, and being used to tracks that you can look at from the outside and definitively say “That’s the main grandstand” or “that’s the backstretch” (I mean, the seats circle this sucker, unlike all the other tracks I’ve been at where part of the backstretch has no seats!!), I had been having difficulty developing a mental map in my head of where everything is in relation to what turn….no more, this cured me of that. I even remembered later where I saw a Radio Shack booth, from our travels. LOL
Finally, it was race time, and we returned to our seats to enjoy the action.
Carl looked good right off, but some bad luck ended his night prematurely. Apparently one weak spot on a tire, coupled with hot brakes, and Carl was in the garage with everything from a broken track bar to something broken in the steering, according to what they were saying on the scanner. Go figure.
It’s sad to watch your guy come back out on the track and just make laps, too far down to gain any points but not wanting a DNF on his record. I was blue for quite a while. Then I started rooting for Greg Biffle, the next nearest Roush guy to the front…but in the end, I was quite happy to see Brad Keslowski win it. ABS. Anyone But Shrub. LOL
ESPECIALLY since the “talking heads” were making a big deal again about Kyle Busch running all 3 races at Bristol, and the chance he had for doing the triple…go ahead and keep talking about Kyle Busch, focus on him, because while he’s leading the points, Carl Edwards is quietly making it a race!!
(I feel I should insert here that, although I share the same last name as the Shrub, and we MAY be distantly related, I am in NO WAY a fan of his. In case you didn’t already get that. LOL)
After the race, the other two were going to use the Raceway Ministries transportation to get back to the campsite, so Jeff and I decided, after having had 2 days of basically relaxing, we were energetic enough that we were going to attempt Holy Hill, the shortest route to our campground…and the longest, steepest hill on the track grounds. I had a little bit of trepidation about this (I mean, even one of the Raceway Ministries guys said “Just change one letter in ‘Holy Hill’ and the name is more accurate!!!”), but I was game to try it once. I mean, so what if we stopped a few times on the way up...
Yeah, right!! I have climbed hills at NASCAR tracks all over the country (Sears Point, err, Infineon Raceway, comes to mind…you just have no idea HOW hilly that track and area is until you’ve climbed the hills!), but NEVER before have I done it straight-shot, up the hill. We did it with 3 stops…this allowed us to catch our breath, and gave us a great view of the track. And visit with other fans doing the same thing. The next morning, I’d get some daytime pics of the track, coming DOWN the hill for the track walk, but the night-time view was spectacular, too.
We did, however, beat the other 2 members of our group, relying on transportation, back to the campsite by at least an hour. So there IS a benefit to tackling Holy Hill. I just don’t want to do it more than once or twice in a weekend. LOL
After some visiting around the campground, we showered (note to those who haven’t camped at a race track before….the showers are always emptier after midnight…and always bring flipflops…you never know what whoever was in front of you left behind. LOL) and hit the sack, storing energy for the BIG day of the weekend.
Finally, one of the races I’d been really looking forward to all week. The LAST Nationwide race I had attended, coincidentally with Jeff, Carl had won the race…would our luck hold?
After dropping the other 2 off at the seats, Jeff and I headed up to our seats in Earnhardt Terrace to watch Cup qualifying…nice seats, cupholder and all, and we and the Aflac ducks enjoyed seeing Carl FINALLY get a pole this season…YAY, now he’ll be in the Shootout next year!!.
We skipped Nationwide qualifying as we had to go find the registration booth for the NASCAR Foundation Track Walk to report in for our track walk the next day….you’d think that would be easy, but at first we had the directions “Outside the main grandstand” (just which side is the main grandstand at Bristol??? It’s basically a bowl!! LOL) and then we found a flyer with more specific instructions, which we proceeded to misread as sign up was at Gate 9 (turns out it was, but only right before the track walk Saturday morning). However, there IS no marked Gate 9. It was the track entrance (where the haulers drive in), and, we found out, no-one there knew anything about the Trackwalk sign-up. We were then directed back up the hill to the Bruton Smith building, which we had passed on the way there on the tram, to enquire there…and FINALLY got some good directions…but in the end we circled the track once on foot inside, then again via tram and golf cart on the outside to find it. Thank God this wasn’t Daytona or Talladega!! How about some clearer directions next time, folks!!! LOL
The plus side of this “adventure”, I’ll call it, for lack of a better term, is that I finally got the “lay of the land” at Bristol in my head…I mean, I saw EVERY square inch of it!! LOL Having never been at a track as small (yet massive!) as Bristol, and being used to tracks that you can look at from the outside and definitively say “That’s the main grandstand” or “that’s the backstretch” (I mean, the seats circle this sucker, unlike all the other tracks I’ve been at where part of the backstretch has no seats!!), I had been having difficulty developing a mental map in my head of where everything is in relation to what turn….no more, this cured me of that. I even remembered later where I saw a Radio Shack booth, from our travels. LOL
Finally, it was race time, and we returned to our seats to enjoy the action.
Carl looked good right off, but some bad luck ended his night prematurely. Apparently one weak spot on a tire, coupled with hot brakes, and Carl was in the garage with everything from a broken track bar to something broken in the steering, according to what they were saying on the scanner. Go figure.
It’s sad to watch your guy come back out on the track and just make laps, too far down to gain any points but not wanting a DNF on his record. I was blue for quite a while. Then I started rooting for Greg Biffle, the next nearest Roush guy to the front…but in the end, I was quite happy to see Brad Keslowski win it. ABS. Anyone But Shrub. LOL
ESPECIALLY since the “talking heads” were making a big deal again about Kyle Busch running all 3 races at Bristol, and the chance he had for doing the triple…go ahead and keep talking about Kyle Busch, focus on him, because while he’s leading the points, Carl Edwards is quietly making it a race!!
(I feel I should insert here that, although I share the same last name as the Shrub, and we MAY be distantly related, I am in NO WAY a fan of his. In case you didn’t already get that. LOL)
After the race, the other two were going to use the Raceway Ministries transportation to get back to the campsite, so Jeff and I decided, after having had 2 days of basically relaxing, we were energetic enough that we were going to attempt Holy Hill, the shortest route to our campground…and the longest, steepest hill on the track grounds. I had a little bit of trepidation about this (I mean, even one of the Raceway Ministries guys said “Just change one letter in ‘Holy Hill’ and the name is more accurate!!!”), but I was game to try it once. I mean, so what if we stopped a few times on the way up...
Yeah, right!! I have climbed hills at NASCAR tracks all over the country (Sears Point, err, Infineon Raceway, comes to mind…you just have no idea HOW hilly that track and area is until you’ve climbed the hills!), but NEVER before have I done it straight-shot, up the hill. We did it with 3 stops…this allowed us to catch our breath, and gave us a great view of the track. And visit with other fans doing the same thing. The next morning, I’d get some daytime pics of the track, coming DOWN the hill for the track walk, but the night-time view was spectacular, too.
We did, however, beat the other 2 members of our group, relying on transportation, back to the campsite by at least an hour. So there IS a benefit to tackling Holy Hill. I just don’t want to do it more than once or twice in a weekend. LOL
After some visiting around the campground, we showered (note to those who haven’t camped at a race track before….the showers are always emptier after midnight…and always bring flipflops…you never know what whoever was in front of you left behind. LOL) and hit the sack, storing energy for the BIG day of the weekend.
SATURDAY -- Bristol, Cup Race Day!!
Track walk, Pit Road and CARL SPINS THE SHRUB!! (Oh yeah, and wins the race, too!!)
Race day dawned, and although Bristol’s weather had been remarkably mild to this point (80s during the daytime, 60s at night) we knew right off this was going to be the hottest day yet.
Jeff and I dressed and headed out, coffee in hand, while the other 2 were still dozing, down to the track for our track walk. I love doing these, when they are available…it’s just cool to get down on the track surface (or up, in the case of Bristol!! LOL) and see everything from the drivers’ points of view….and the money is usually for a good cause, and often some drivers join the crowd. Carl did at Gateway, and that was a small group, so we all got to walk with him, but there were at least 100 people here for this one, so I knew we wouldn’t do more than get glimpses of Dave Blaney, Joe Nemechek and Michael McDowell on this one. That’s o-kay, it’s still fun to do.
Arriving down at “Gate 9” we saw that people were already gathering, so we found a spot to sit and wait. Lola, who we had accidentally found the day before during our “searching for the Foundation tent” adventure, showed up shortly thereafter and we chatted a while, then Lola waved to someone she knew in the crowd…it was Emily!! So I got to meet 2 more Edheads.
Finally heading down, the first thing we saw before getting onto the track was Michael McDowell, sitting in the shade of the stands on his golf cart (because, believe me, even at 10 am, it was HOT!!!), so we snapped photos and got autographs, those who wanted them…then the organizers shooed Michael and the crowd onto the track to keep things from bottlenecking there…and we headed down.
Now, via pit passes and track walks, I’ve been on track surfaces before, but this was like walking down the side of a popcorn bowl!! Amazing!! And, as we walked on around into turn 3, it got so much steeper, it boggled the mind. So THAT’S what 36 degree banking feels like!! LOL
While standing on the banking and surveying the infield from that vantage point, another Edhead, seeing my Edhead t-shirt, approached me and introduced herself….WVRoushfan. She had her AFLAC duck along for the walk, cozily perched in her fanny pack (ours were still napping, too. LOL Sadly, we forgot them). It was great to meet her, too.
Walking on around, middle of turn 3 and 4 I gave up on balancing on the banking (after a pic or 2 at the top, of course. LOL) and headed down to the apron, which is also slightly banked in the corners, FYI….and I did a naughty thing...I couldn’t resist sticking a “Smile Bob” sticker on the wall. LOL Who knows, maybe a red flag would happen, and Carl would be parked there….and it’s just a vinyl sticker, it peels off. LOL
On around the track we went, checking out the quiet pit lanes, pit boxes all covered but ready to be set up by the crews later that day, and as I suspected, with his Pole position, Carl and the 99 crew had chosen the number one pit stall…almost directly in front of our seats!! AWESOME! Things were looking up, after the bad luck of the Nationwide race. Hopefully my and Carl’s luck would be better today.
After finishing up the track walk, we headed back to the campsite to cool down (taking the shuttles this time…no more Holy Hill for me!! LOL) and have a bite of lunch before I had to return to the track for my “track tour” aka pit lane access. Jeff offered to come down and wait for me, but I told him to just relax, I’m well-versed at getting around race tracks…and after our adventures yesterday, the layout was burned into my brain. I wouldn’t be getting lost. LOL
Now let me say, for these trips, Bubba and Raceway Ministries had told us to call them for any trip to the track, but as Jeff and I were able-bodied, we chose to do as the other able bodied folks (most of them) were doing…get there ourselves. Why burn their gas for special trips when it wasn’t the entire group?
Back down at “Gate 9”, I lined up with the other ONMC members signed up for the tour, and watched crewmen (and the occasional VIP, including Mike Helton…) enter and leave the track. I met another couple of Carl fans, whose camera was on the fritz, and got their contact info with a promise to share my pics from the time on pit lane with them.
Sadly, this wasn’t a Garage tour, with the tight confines down there, even ONMC couldn’t get a group in for that, but we got to do the traditional walk around and watch the crews getting raceday ready, from outside the pit walls, and some notables in NASCAR were being interviewed down there, so that was interesting. Kasey Kahne’s show car was down there on the track for fans to see and get their picture taken with….unless it’s the 99 car, I generally just keep on walking. LOL
I spent a bit of time, of course, watching the 99 guys working on the car and setting up the pit stall, then DJ Copp of NASCAR Now fame came by…I had previously been introduced to him in his pre-ESPN days, when he was a member of Carl’s 99 crew, so we chatted a bit, and I gave him a stack of “Smile Bob” stickers which he delivered to the 99 guys (who were out of reach thanks to barriers)…I hope they have some fun with them, and Bob Smiles. LOL
Finishing up (I could have stayed until they kicked everyone out, but after an hour in the heat, I was wiped out, and ready for a cold beverage) I left the track…should be easy, right, just walk out where we came in, under the grandstands where the haulers driver through, “Gate 9”.
Nope. They blocked that off, and directed us to either walk all the way down to turn 2 and go out there, or climb the stands and go out that way.
Well, since my campground was across the road from the end of the track we came in on, no WAY was I walking all the way down to turn 2, then back on the outside….1/2 mile track or no, my tootsies were tired.
So, a “Holy Hill” of my own, climbing 40+ rows up the grandstands to the exit into the Concourse….UGH!!
Who needs a stairmaster…I know I’m out of shape, but the thought that Carl Edwards routinely RUNS those stairs until his legs give out, I felt like such a wimp.
But after one stop half-way up, I finally emerged on the concourse….and made a B-line to the nearest cold beverage vendor.
$2 water never tasted so good! Neither did the beer that I had after that, for the trip back to the campsite…hey, it was 5 o’clock somewhere!!
One shuttle ride later, I found the boys lounging around in the shade by Bessie, looking remarkably rested compared to my sweaty mess (I had to use the facilities, but no way could I until I dried out a bit….trying to peel off and put back on jeans when you are sweat-drenched just creates MORE sweat! LOL). They’d even taken a nap, in preparation for the race that night….I was wishing I had time for a nap at this point, but that wasn’t to be.
After a while cooling down, and some yummy deer steak served by our host, an avid hunter, we headed back to the track with plenty of time to get to our seats and enjoy some of the pre-race festivities.
Race time, YAY!! It was lovely seeing Carl starting on the Pole…and the first few laps were great…until Juablo proved to be a problem. Carl spent lap after lap after lap trying to get by him, but Juan Pablo wouldn’t give up….I mean, just let him pass, then settle in behind him to pass other lap cars and be the Lucky Dog, if you are that fast!! Don’t continually block the leaders…I get that he was trying to keep from going a lap down, but he continued this action throughout the race, racing EVERYONE harder than he really needed to…I think numerous drivers were a little peeved at him by the time the race was half-way over.
This “battle”, for lack of a better term, finally resulted in Carl getting passed by the Shrub, who settled in to lead so long that with 100 laps to go, people started getting up and leaving, thinking the writing was on the wall, that the Shrub was going to win yet another one, and having no interest in watching that…probably thinking if that was going to happen, they might as well get a jump on the traffic, I guess.
Now, I’m not condemning those people, I did the same thing after Atlanta, when Carl, the winner’s main competition from the sheer number of laps Carl lead, blew an engine, and it was obvious no-one had anything for him, and in that case, I was right, but this night, I knew as long as Carl was running second to him, there was ALWAYS a chance he’d get by him….and he almost did on pit lane once, missing by only a hair. The 99 guys were AWESOME!!
On this night, those “Mystery Debris” cautions worked in the 99 team’s benefit (and I did see a truck go out and pick something up off the track every time…although we joked that it was usually just a wayward beer can, directed at the Shrub, who was stinking up the show) and Carl was FINALLY able to get the jump, with the help of the Bump and Run move that the Shrub has NO PROBLEM using liberally himself, and get around him, and just cruise to the end. AWESOME!!!
The cheers when Carl passed him were deafening, as were the cheers when he took the checkers….another flip!! That’s 3 in the 4 race weekends I’ve attended this season…it’s a good season to be an Edhead, that’s for sure, Carl is a threat to win at every track, something the TV talking heads keep over-looking….well, they can’t now. 6 wins to the Shrub’s 8…going for the Cup, Baby!!!
Added bonus, the Shrub decided to “voice his displeasure” at having a move HE uses all the time, used on him, and rubbed Carl pretty hard.
Well, several other drivers have tried that before, and although Carl’s a great guy, and nice, he’s not going to back down when someone does something like that to him. He’s no push-over.
The cheers when Carl came back and spun the Shrub were once again “raise the roof” loud….and the way the Shrub took off after him, I thought for sure the 99 car was going to be going to Victory Lane on a wrecker, with both drivers making a trip to “The Hauler”, but apparently the Shrub’s spotter/Crew chief got to him and calmed him down enough that he just headed to the garage.
That BRISTOL, BABY!! Check your emotions at the door, and learn to take what you dish out. You may be the star right now, Shrub, but none of these guys are going to cut you any slack when you act like a petulant child.
There was one down side to the night….our “semi-handicapped” host had his knee injured while waiting in line for the restroom, when a drunken fan fell into him….he gamely continued hobbling along, but with 2 false hips, one previously broken ankle and another broken ankle currently on the mend, doesn’t it just figure that HE would be the one knocked down, resulting in another injured joint. I mean, he’s running out of joints!
After a bit he was able to walk on it, and refused to let us flag down EMS to go to the hospital and get it checked out, and we got home fine, shuttles and golf carts getting us there, but he was pretty sore this morning…but still insisted on waiting until we got back to Iowa to get it checked out. I’m hoping that, although it’s sore, nothing serious is wrong with it, as he is still able to walk on it, but this man just has NO luck when it comes to joints and injuries….
The trip back to Iowa in Bessie was uneventful, and arriving at 5am Monday morning, we crashed. Monday was a “relax and hang out” day for Jeff and I, and too soon, it was Tuesday, and time to head back to California.
THAT trip was also uneventful, if long (2 hour lay-over in DFW), or WOULD have been, if the shuttle bus from LAX to Bakersfield hadn’t overheated in traffic…for the second time in a week, I smelt that sickly-sweet antifreeze smoke…and we spent 3 hours that night sitting at the side of an LA freeway, waiting for a replacement bus…sleeping on a bus is ALMOST as bad as trying to sleep on an airplane, but I FINALLY arrived home (after an entertaining time listening to the bus driver berate whoever was on the other end of the phone who decided that 14 people stranded at the side of an LA freeway was not an emergency, and waited 2 hours to send out the replacement bus!! He was NOT polite in his thoughts about that, and I won’t repeat here some of the words he used. LOL). I got a free shuttle ride out of it, so in the end, despite the loss of a night doing laundry, I was personally none the worse for wear….I could have been the lady on the bus who had spent all day, due to airline delays, trying to get home, only to get stranded by the freeway…I thought she was going to crack. LOL
Now, how to contain my urge to scrape up the cash to go to the Phoenix race in November….LOL
BUT, as my roommate reminded me tonight, Fontana is only a couple of hours down the road…and unless we’re scheduled to work Sunday night, we are both off work at 7am Sunday morning………………
Race day dawned, and although Bristol’s weather had been remarkably mild to this point (80s during the daytime, 60s at night) we knew right off this was going to be the hottest day yet.
Jeff and I dressed and headed out, coffee in hand, while the other 2 were still dozing, down to the track for our track walk. I love doing these, when they are available…it’s just cool to get down on the track surface (or up, in the case of Bristol!! LOL) and see everything from the drivers’ points of view….and the money is usually for a good cause, and often some drivers join the crowd. Carl did at Gateway, and that was a small group, so we all got to walk with him, but there were at least 100 people here for this one, so I knew we wouldn’t do more than get glimpses of Dave Blaney, Joe Nemechek and Michael McDowell on this one. That’s o-kay, it’s still fun to do.
Arriving down at “Gate 9” we saw that people were already gathering, so we found a spot to sit and wait. Lola, who we had accidentally found the day before during our “searching for the Foundation tent” adventure, showed up shortly thereafter and we chatted a while, then Lola waved to someone she knew in the crowd…it was Emily!! So I got to meet 2 more Edheads.
Finally heading down, the first thing we saw before getting onto the track was Michael McDowell, sitting in the shade of the stands on his golf cart (because, believe me, even at 10 am, it was HOT!!!), so we snapped photos and got autographs, those who wanted them…then the organizers shooed Michael and the crowd onto the track to keep things from bottlenecking there…and we headed down.
Now, via pit passes and track walks, I’ve been on track surfaces before, but this was like walking down the side of a popcorn bowl!! Amazing!! And, as we walked on around into turn 3, it got so much steeper, it boggled the mind. So THAT’S what 36 degree banking feels like!! LOL
While standing on the banking and surveying the infield from that vantage point, another Edhead, seeing my Edhead t-shirt, approached me and introduced herself….WVRoushfan. She had her AFLAC duck along for the walk, cozily perched in her fanny pack (ours were still napping, too. LOL Sadly, we forgot them). It was great to meet her, too.
Walking on around, middle of turn 3 and 4 I gave up on balancing on the banking (after a pic or 2 at the top, of course. LOL) and headed down to the apron, which is also slightly banked in the corners, FYI….and I did a naughty thing...I couldn’t resist sticking a “Smile Bob” sticker on the wall. LOL Who knows, maybe a red flag would happen, and Carl would be parked there….and it’s just a vinyl sticker, it peels off. LOL
On around the track we went, checking out the quiet pit lanes, pit boxes all covered but ready to be set up by the crews later that day, and as I suspected, with his Pole position, Carl and the 99 crew had chosen the number one pit stall…almost directly in front of our seats!! AWESOME! Things were looking up, after the bad luck of the Nationwide race. Hopefully my and Carl’s luck would be better today.
After finishing up the track walk, we headed back to the campsite to cool down (taking the shuttles this time…no more Holy Hill for me!! LOL) and have a bite of lunch before I had to return to the track for my “track tour” aka pit lane access. Jeff offered to come down and wait for me, but I told him to just relax, I’m well-versed at getting around race tracks…and after our adventures yesterday, the layout was burned into my brain. I wouldn’t be getting lost. LOL
Now let me say, for these trips, Bubba and Raceway Ministries had told us to call them for any trip to the track, but as Jeff and I were able-bodied, we chose to do as the other able bodied folks (most of them) were doing…get there ourselves. Why burn their gas for special trips when it wasn’t the entire group?
Back down at “Gate 9”, I lined up with the other ONMC members signed up for the tour, and watched crewmen (and the occasional VIP, including Mike Helton…) enter and leave the track. I met another couple of Carl fans, whose camera was on the fritz, and got their contact info with a promise to share my pics from the time on pit lane with them.
Sadly, this wasn’t a Garage tour, with the tight confines down there, even ONMC couldn’t get a group in for that, but we got to do the traditional walk around and watch the crews getting raceday ready, from outside the pit walls, and some notables in NASCAR were being interviewed down there, so that was interesting. Kasey Kahne’s show car was down there on the track for fans to see and get their picture taken with….unless it’s the 99 car, I generally just keep on walking. LOL
I spent a bit of time, of course, watching the 99 guys working on the car and setting up the pit stall, then DJ Copp of NASCAR Now fame came by…I had previously been introduced to him in his pre-ESPN days, when he was a member of Carl’s 99 crew, so we chatted a bit, and I gave him a stack of “Smile Bob” stickers which he delivered to the 99 guys (who were out of reach thanks to barriers)…I hope they have some fun with them, and Bob Smiles. LOL
Finishing up (I could have stayed until they kicked everyone out, but after an hour in the heat, I was wiped out, and ready for a cold beverage) I left the track…should be easy, right, just walk out where we came in, under the grandstands where the haulers driver through, “Gate 9”.
Nope. They blocked that off, and directed us to either walk all the way down to turn 2 and go out there, or climb the stands and go out that way.
Well, since my campground was across the road from the end of the track we came in on, no WAY was I walking all the way down to turn 2, then back on the outside….1/2 mile track or no, my tootsies were tired.
So, a “Holy Hill” of my own, climbing 40+ rows up the grandstands to the exit into the Concourse….UGH!!
Who needs a stairmaster…I know I’m out of shape, but the thought that Carl Edwards routinely RUNS those stairs until his legs give out, I felt like such a wimp.
But after one stop half-way up, I finally emerged on the concourse….and made a B-line to the nearest cold beverage vendor.
$2 water never tasted so good! Neither did the beer that I had after that, for the trip back to the campsite…hey, it was 5 o’clock somewhere!!
One shuttle ride later, I found the boys lounging around in the shade by Bessie, looking remarkably rested compared to my sweaty mess (I had to use the facilities, but no way could I until I dried out a bit….trying to peel off and put back on jeans when you are sweat-drenched just creates MORE sweat! LOL). They’d even taken a nap, in preparation for the race that night….I was wishing I had time for a nap at this point, but that wasn’t to be.
After a while cooling down, and some yummy deer steak served by our host, an avid hunter, we headed back to the track with plenty of time to get to our seats and enjoy some of the pre-race festivities.
Race time, YAY!! It was lovely seeing Carl starting on the Pole…and the first few laps were great…until Juablo proved to be a problem. Carl spent lap after lap after lap trying to get by him, but Juan Pablo wouldn’t give up….I mean, just let him pass, then settle in behind him to pass other lap cars and be the Lucky Dog, if you are that fast!! Don’t continually block the leaders…I get that he was trying to keep from going a lap down, but he continued this action throughout the race, racing EVERYONE harder than he really needed to…I think numerous drivers were a little peeved at him by the time the race was half-way over.
This “battle”, for lack of a better term, finally resulted in Carl getting passed by the Shrub, who settled in to lead so long that with 100 laps to go, people started getting up and leaving, thinking the writing was on the wall, that the Shrub was going to win yet another one, and having no interest in watching that…probably thinking if that was going to happen, they might as well get a jump on the traffic, I guess.
Now, I’m not condemning those people, I did the same thing after Atlanta, when Carl, the winner’s main competition from the sheer number of laps Carl lead, blew an engine, and it was obvious no-one had anything for him, and in that case, I was right, but this night, I knew as long as Carl was running second to him, there was ALWAYS a chance he’d get by him….and he almost did on pit lane once, missing by only a hair. The 99 guys were AWESOME!!
On this night, those “Mystery Debris” cautions worked in the 99 team’s benefit (and I did see a truck go out and pick something up off the track every time…although we joked that it was usually just a wayward beer can, directed at the Shrub, who was stinking up the show) and Carl was FINALLY able to get the jump, with the help of the Bump and Run move that the Shrub has NO PROBLEM using liberally himself, and get around him, and just cruise to the end. AWESOME!!!
The cheers when Carl passed him were deafening, as were the cheers when he took the checkers….another flip!! That’s 3 in the 4 race weekends I’ve attended this season…it’s a good season to be an Edhead, that’s for sure, Carl is a threat to win at every track, something the TV talking heads keep over-looking….well, they can’t now. 6 wins to the Shrub’s 8…going for the Cup, Baby!!!
Added bonus, the Shrub decided to “voice his displeasure” at having a move HE uses all the time, used on him, and rubbed Carl pretty hard.
Well, several other drivers have tried that before, and although Carl’s a great guy, and nice, he’s not going to back down when someone does something like that to him. He’s no push-over.
The cheers when Carl came back and spun the Shrub were once again “raise the roof” loud….and the way the Shrub took off after him, I thought for sure the 99 car was going to be going to Victory Lane on a wrecker, with both drivers making a trip to “The Hauler”, but apparently the Shrub’s spotter/Crew chief got to him and calmed him down enough that he just headed to the garage.
That BRISTOL, BABY!! Check your emotions at the door, and learn to take what you dish out. You may be the star right now, Shrub, but none of these guys are going to cut you any slack when you act like a petulant child.
There was one down side to the night….our “semi-handicapped” host had his knee injured while waiting in line for the restroom, when a drunken fan fell into him….he gamely continued hobbling along, but with 2 false hips, one previously broken ankle and another broken ankle currently on the mend, doesn’t it just figure that HE would be the one knocked down, resulting in another injured joint. I mean, he’s running out of joints!
After a bit he was able to walk on it, and refused to let us flag down EMS to go to the hospital and get it checked out, and we got home fine, shuttles and golf carts getting us there, but he was pretty sore this morning…but still insisted on waiting until we got back to Iowa to get it checked out. I’m hoping that, although it’s sore, nothing serious is wrong with it, as he is still able to walk on it, but this man just has NO luck when it comes to joints and injuries….
The trip back to Iowa in Bessie was uneventful, and arriving at 5am Monday morning, we crashed. Monday was a “relax and hang out” day for Jeff and I, and too soon, it was Tuesday, and time to head back to California.
THAT trip was also uneventful, if long (2 hour lay-over in DFW), or WOULD have been, if the shuttle bus from LAX to Bakersfield hadn’t overheated in traffic…for the second time in a week, I smelt that sickly-sweet antifreeze smoke…and we spent 3 hours that night sitting at the side of an LA freeway, waiting for a replacement bus…sleeping on a bus is ALMOST as bad as trying to sleep on an airplane, but I FINALLY arrived home (after an entertaining time listening to the bus driver berate whoever was on the other end of the phone who decided that 14 people stranded at the side of an LA freeway was not an emergency, and waited 2 hours to send out the replacement bus!! He was NOT polite in his thoughts about that, and I won’t repeat here some of the words he used. LOL). I got a free shuttle ride out of it, so in the end, despite the loss of a night doing laundry, I was personally none the worse for wear….I could have been the lady on the bus who had spent all day, due to airline delays, trying to get home, only to get stranded by the freeway…I thought she was going to crack. LOL
Now, how to contain my urge to scrape up the cash to go to the Phoenix race in November….LOL
BUT, as my roommate reminded me tonight, Fontana is only a couple of hours down the road…and unless we’re scheduled to work Sunday night, we are both off work at 7am Sunday morning………………
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