Unfortunately, thejeepjunkie is road tripping his mother and father in law, along with a sister in law, back to the Ozark Mountains this weekend and won't be able to make it out to the Speedway for a little Hoonage this weekend.
As an aside, his MIL had a pretty major stroke a few weeks ago. She and her family were down here in the Sunshine State watching the Kid's sister play in a couple hard core softball tournaments. On their way home, she suffered that stroke while waiting for a flight at the Orlando International Airport. Yeah, all kinds of traumatic stuff going on there. Luckily, an extremely competent neurosurgeon was around and MIL Mary Ann received excellent care and was released to return home late last week. thejeepjunkie and The Blonde Bombshell were recruited to get those folks home via a $2,600 rental Town and Country minivan and that is thejeepjunkie's 4th of July weekend. Glad all those prayers for that family were answered.
In the meantime however, the Kid was the lucky recepient of the same ticket this olelongrooffan got and he was texted, yes, I am doing that these days...I blame Kris...about the possibility of hooking up and heading out to the Subway 250 Nationwide race on Friday.
He agreed to spend some time with his olelongrooffan uncle out at the track and I swung by thesungoddess's home to pick him up and head out to the Daytona International Speedway for some Nationwide action.
After revealing to the Kid my favorite parking spot at the entrance to the new NASCAR headquarters he was concerned about the possibility of getting towed. I told him the second time I parked on the median to that entrance that when I returned Daytona Beach's finest were sitting there on their Harley's and I asked if it was okay to park here. "I don't care where you park as long as it is not on the public right of way." was the response this olelongrooffan received and I have successfully parked there ever since, just across the street from those $50 per spot guys.
So the Kid and I snagged a ride through the tunnel that is as old as this olelongrooffan on one of those stretch golf carts that shuttle folks around and made our way into the pits to see the first Chrysler/Fiat products I have seen at the Speedway in many years.
Now I must share this with those of you Counting Along With Me. I hate to be jaded about attending a NASCAR event that many spend years planning on attending but after having attended a whole d*mn bunch of these events over the past couple years,
it is tough to have a non-jaded take on this experience.
After standing in this position with a Hot Pass for many years, watching these khaki clad NASCAR officials doing their tech inspection has become a somewhat "been there done that" experience.
Even the Kid commented on it as we were watching Tony Stewart being interviewed after qualifying for the Subway 250 race on Friday nite.
And all these cars lined up for tech inspections. Yeah, been there and done that also.
As the Kid commented, "Yeah, there is Smoke" and we headed out to see what else was up.
One of the pretty cool things we did see was Mike Wallace's car.
The entire wrap was a collage of photos and looked pretty cool. I am going to guess Cowboys & Aliens is another movie this olelongrooffan will never see.
Before we left the Nationwide garage area, I captured this image of the "Challenger" body style
as well as this one of the "Mustang."
the Kid and this olelongrooffan did something extremely rare for us and purchased some grub in the FanZone. The fish and chips were pretty good and at $10 pretty reasonably priced. However the $3 water and $4 Diet Coke were a bit much though.
As we were taking a last walk down pit road, the Sprint Cup cars were lined up getting ready for qualifying and I captured this image of Kevin Harvick's Budweiser machine in yet another paint scheme. I posed the question to a crew member sitting on the pit wall, "you guys change your paint scheme every week?" "Man, it sure seems like it," was his return comment.
And as a final act, as we were leaving, we headed over to the carnival to score some swag, which we did and this olelongrooffan captured this image of the Kid next to that 66 Bus we both loved more than any of the new cars in their display booths.
Just know Counters, spending a few hours with the Kid and realizing what killer passes we had to that race session really allow this olelongrooffan to
Celebrate Life.
1 comment:
Great time held at the track.
Now remember that I am coming down and you and the kid will have to be tourist escorts for this old Horsefarmer and the Barngoddess1,
Although we have been to the track, we haven't BEEN TO THE TRACK"
be safe and see you sooner than later.
tom and viola
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