Vroom Vroom

Before there was Chitty Chitty Ben Ben, before there was Hawaii, there was Nascar.

We went to a Nascar race at the Richmond International Raceway way back at the end of April, but I'm still blogging about it because I'm still a little hard of hearing from the effects the race had on me.

We decided to make a full White-Trash-Weekend out of it.  We practiced driving like race car drivers for weeks.

We wore our best stereotypical white trash outfits.  (I think the girls were a little bit more in character than the boys, just sayin.)  I even wore my race car shoes!

We ate bologna and cheeseballs.

And for those of you who think we were being unfairly stereotypical, when we pulled out our bologna sandwiches, the nice gentleman with the handlebar mustache behind us almost cried he was so excited!  "Are you guys eating bologna sandwiches!  I love those!  They are my favorite!"  Plus, I saw 17 other people in our area with a giant container of cheeseballs, I counted.  So we weren't stereotyping, we were fitting in with our people.

We played a game looking for the fan that most represented what Nascar fans are all about.  Here are just a few.

Mr. Fitted Grey Polo and Khakis got the anti-fan award.  Seriously, is he lost?

They had a wonderful patriotic filled program and then they had the parade of drivers.  I was personally voting for Juan Pablo Montoya, I had a gut feeling he was going to win.  I chose him before we even got to Nascar, wrote his name on my shirt, and had a Montoya chant prepared.

Montoya is #42, the Target sponsored car, a little Lightning McQueenesque.  

Alex would be so proud I chose the Target car instinctively.

Once all the "I Love the USA" fanfare was over and the last driver had circled the raceway and our earplugs were tightly snug in our ears, the race began.

Gentlemen, start your engines. 

Kelly was done on lap 3.  Myles was done by lap 7.

At lap 55, Jayci and I were still going strong, especially since Montoya was off to a strong start, maintaining the lead!  

(I was shocked that without doing any research and knowing absolutely nothing about Nascar, I had picked the winner.)

The entertaining drunk fans were going strong too.  They were completely wasted, obviously following the continuing admonition of the raceway: drink responsibly.

The fans right in front of us wore fancy equipment that was like listening to the radio play by play and watching everything on the small handheld screen.

Around lap 100, a very impolite car tapped my Montoya which sent him jerking into the wall.  He had to over correct himself and he lost the lead, eventually slipping into 35th place, never to regain the lead.

A hundred or so laps later, Montoya sought revenge and caused this to happen to the car that bumped him (My name is Juan Pablo Montoya, you bumped me into the wall, prepare to crash):

Oh, Montoya.  I sure know how to pick 'em.

By lap 220, we were finding different ways to make the race more exciting, like going down right by the track and feeling the wind and the heat and the power of the race cars as they whizzed by in a blur.

By lap 250, we were all ready to call it a day.

Everyone except this guy. 

For Kyle, it was like every lap was the first lap.

I think he would still be at the raceway today if he didn't have to drive us all home.

Speaking of the drive home, the traffic nearly killed some of us.  It was kind of ironic to spend the last 4 hours watching a race and then be in a car and not moving for the next 3 hours.

But at least we were able to spend those hours together, remembering all the good times we'd just shared, yelling out fond memories as we tried to regain our hearing.