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BUSY WEEKEND, SLEEP ANYONE? |
| This week has been a busy one.
It started out on Sunday with getting up and going to work at Petty
following the wreck at Mohave Valley. Blake worked on Sunday to
get the car unloaded for me and the trailer over to it's parking spot.
Thanks! Monday I worked and came home to wash the car for a
couple of hours, worked extra hard to get the "broken" spots as clean as
possible. Ordered the front end parts and called it a day.
Tuesday is my bowling league night. Wednesday was web site night as I
updated a couple of sites. Thursday I was put on the pass list for the
Late Model / USAC Sprint Car show at LVMS. So I worked until 3
and left for the track at 5:30. We arrived there in time for hot laps
and time trials. About 50 sprinters and 75 Late Models were on
hand and they qualified in groups of 4 to 6 cars. By 9:30 they
were still two heats from the end of the Late Models and there was a scary
accident. I decided to get home as I needed to work on Friday.
After work on Friday we braved the traffic from Cup qualifying to get into
the dirt track. Again made it in time for hot laps, and then
qualifying. We made it through the whole night this time and
wound up at home by about 12:30am. Back up early and ready to
head to the track. Carly came up with some new "Neon Garage"
passes and we headed out to check those out before I had to report to Petty
for work at 1:00pm. The garages are GREAT!! The drivers
were quoted as saying it felt like being in a fish bowl as you can view them
through big windows at ground level or from huge windows above looking down.
It was awesome. Managed to see several "stars" and took a few
photos. Some through the glass didn't turn out that great, but
I'm sure you can make out who they are of. Just at the green
flag I left everyone and headed to the business complex to make the 1:00pm
Petty meeting. We met and headed to the infield of the Super
Speedway to wait for our ride event following the Busch race. We
stood on whatever we could to see the race and were watching as Busch and
Burton got together coming for the checkered with Burton winning and Busch
hitting the fence. He wasn't injured. From our perspective
I had a sudden understanding of what it's all about. Kyle came
off the track, down pit road, and through a little fenced path headed to the
infield car center (required by NASCAR). You could tell he was
disappointed and I would have been too. However within seconds
he was pounced on by the media and they were in his face with cameras until
he made it to the media center. No time to collect his thoughts, no
time to come down from the adrenaline. It has to be rough.
No matter what you think of drivers personally, they are still people and at
times they aren't treated like people. It was interesting to see that
take place. As we waited by the fence to head out to the track
several "stars" stode by the fence we were hanging on. Jack
Roush, Kyle Busch on his golf cart, Kevin Harvick & Delana, as well as Carl
Edwards and his entourage. It was cool, I'll admit it.
Finally we got to take the Petty cars to pit road. I was,
strangely enough, put into the 5 Kellogg's car of Kyle Busch. As
we made our way to pit road people were waving, hooting, hollering, giving
us high fives like we were actually the drivers. Someone was
even hollering "JUNIOR, JUNIOR, YOU ROCK!" to the guy driving the 8 car.
I thought it was fun. About 3 hours later we were done giving
rides to 412 people. WHEW! 3 straight hours in a car
without a break is brutal, especially when you aren't making millions to do
it. However the people had a blast and I'm grateful for the
opportunity to be a part of something like that. We're not going
nearly as fast and we aren't nearly the drivers they are, but we are helping
to make some people's dreams come true. That's what it's all
about. So many people got in grinning from ear to ear because
they were riding in the "5 car" and that they had been praying they would
get into that car, etc, etc. During the rides I had people
screaming, giving thumbs up, and those hanging on with white knuckles for
dear life. I was very glad to be a part of it all.
Awesome experience. I think I learned a little more compassion
out there, nice to have some of that. Below are some
photos if you made it through all that yammering above! :)
PS The parts are slowly coming in so this week will be just as busy.
FUN! |
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