IT'S BRISTOL, BABY!!!!

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).