Race Weekend

It's race time in Bristol again. Yesterday was the spring Nascar race, and Jeff Burton (my favorite) won. Yippee!!! Now, I'm not really much into Nascar, and I don't like the inconvenience caused by thousands of people coming into town. However, I had a great weekend!

The Bristol Tennessee City Schools are closed on Friday of Race Week. So, Scott and I took off work to spend some family time together with Sam. We went to the park and hiked, even though it was raining a little. It was good exercise and great fun.

After hiking, we stopped off in the Nature Center and were pleasantly surprised at all the animals on display and information available. We watched a snapping turtle snap at goldfish, and we held a corn snake. I went in there determined NOT to hold the snake. I willingly petted it while Sam and Scott held it, but I wanted no part of holding it myself. The older gentleman working in the Nature Center somehow persuaded me to let him put the snake around my neck, and Sam captured the moment in the following picture. (It's blurry because it was hard to stand still with a snake around my neck.)



Here's Sam holding the snake:

Race Day Report -- Finally

I'm finally able to upload some pictures and tell a little more about Wednesday night's races. Sam and I got there around 3:00, when nothing was going on. The qualifying for the Food City 150 had already been done, and we had to wait until 4:00 for the qualifying to start for the Truck Race. This is what the track looked like then, pretty empty:



And this is what Sam and I looked like then, pretty excited:



The Food City 150 started around 5:45 and was fairly interesting. There were too many cautions for it to be really fun to watch. Just when the cars would get going good, someone would spin out, causing a caution. The real excitement started with the Truck Race at 8:00. Mark Martin (car #21) was my favorite, and he finished well, in 3rd place. The winner was Johnny Benson in car #23. Travis Kvapil, driving the #6 car, won the pole position in qualifying and lead for most of the race. I was a little disappointed when he finished around 11th or 12th place. Here is what a night race at Bristol Motor Speedway looks like:



This is me and Scott enjoying the race:



We sat in the family section of the stands, where no alcoholic beverages are alowed. I was wondering how strictly it was enforced and was pleased to see a racetrack employee go around informing everyone of the rule. That was at the beginning of the first race. I didn't see anyone making an attempt to enforce it for the rest of the evening, other than myself, when a trio of men with a cooler of beer sat really close to me and Sam. Since Scott hadn't made it there yet, and we were basically by ourselves, I politely informed the men that they were sitting in the non-alcohol section. They grumbled somewhat, but they left promptly for a different section. Sam was relieved. A few weeks ago, while at the drag races with Scott, he witnessed a brawl between some men who were drinking; and he was nervous while it was just him and me there.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience and one that I know Sam will remember forever. It was a little more than I could handle, physically, since we had to walk a long way from our car to the speedway and then up what felt like a million steps to the top row in the stands. After the race, it took over half an hour to walk back to our car. I was EXHAUSTED that night and the next day!!! But, it was all worth it to give Sam an experience he'll never forget.