BIrffday Ride

Twas a birthday ride for our fearless leader, Art and the weather was chilly! It was bar far the coldest day of the fall so far, at right about 43 degrees for the start. Nearly everyone was in long sleeves and tights. The rider turnout was really small too, no more than 15 or so (instead of the usual 40). And to make things worse, the wind was howling. Fortunately, that jacket I got on sale a few weeks back is windproof, so I was comfortable. As snug as a bug in a rug.....reminds me of the new CD I got this week: The Pride Of Cleveland. 11 cool songs from early 1980s. Sweet. 

Off To The Races...

Went to the big race Saturday night in Concord (Charlotte). We have a neighbor and his son who enjoy going to the local track races. They are from Brazil and have never been to a Nascar race before. So we invited them to come along and enjoy a race with us. Ian is friends with the boy so that worked out well. 

We threw our bikes on the truck and were off to the race early Saturday AM. We got to the track by 11:00 AM and found our usual parking spot along Speedway Blvd. Then we unloaded the bikes and road over to the airport to say hello to my friend Steve. He always takes us on a golfcart tour of the airport, shows us some interesting aviation tidbits.  We then went to the race shop/ store for Roush Fenway Racing and showed the newbies around. They have some cool things in there but the most interesting is a mangled race car from the 2004 Arca race in Daytona. Right next to the car is a big-screen TV showing the video of the crash taking place that mangled the car. It flipped over so many times, you'd be amazed the driver survived at all let alone walking away with no major injuries.

The race was good for a number of reasons. First, the weather was about perfect: cool and breezy. Second, we were sitting in the first row between turns 1 and 2. The action was really close. Jessica Simpson gave a little concert pre-race which we missed. She sang the national anthem as well and she did a pretty good job with that, considering the acoustics suck and that's a difficult song to sing. There was a nice flyover by a C17. During the race, there were a number of different drivers who lead and right up until the last 25 or so laps, it was anybody's race. (Jeff Burton edged out Casey Kahne for the win). Alas one disappointing note was that our main man, #22 Caterpillar Toyota, Dave Blaney had a terrible night. The car sucked. The team just hasn't been able to put it together consistently this year. Very frustrating! 

We got to see some action too, as Junior's tire exploded right in front of us and he slammed the wall just to out right. Later, Montoya slammed the wall right in front of us. I don't know if the TV showed this but later in the race Denny Hamlin was sideways in turn 1, hit the wall in front of us and somehow managed to keep moving along without wrecking. Amazing. He must have had flashbacks of his wreck the week before at Talladega. BTW, Blaney drove Hamlin's car in the Nationwide race Friday night; finished 17th. The Brazilians were amused by the druken exploits of the fans and frankly so was I. Its like 50% racing and 50% people watching!

The good news is that on Sunday we stopped by Blaney's race shop and had lunch with him and the family. He and his wife Lisa had a nice spread for us. Even his parents were in for the weekend. Got to chat with some other hard core Blaniacs, a few of whom I have met before at other races. Dave is kind of down about the way the season has played out. He's still unsure about next year but hoping for the best. I am too. On to Martinsville!