Day forty one - Saturday

The first part of the day was spent doing little to nothing. I fooled around putting a few things away since we're leaving tomorrow.

At three o'clock we piled into the car and headed toward Concord, NC. Lowes Motorspeedway used to be called Charlotte Motorspeedway, even though it's really in Concord. We found some back roads and came at the track from the east instead of coming from Charlotte. We avoided the heavy traffic and drove right into the parking lot. An hour after leaving KOA we were parking the car and walking to the track.

At the track we found will-call and picked up our tickets. We walked through the vendor area but didn't buy anything other than a Lowes bumper sticker. For those of you who haven't been to a NASCAR race, the teams don't just show up to race. Most teams also send an eighteen-wheeler full of souveniors to sell outside the track. The sides of the trailer open up to reveal shelves, displays and cases full of team stuff. A lot of the teams and sponsors also give stuff away in this area. We got some race flags and other stuff.

At five o'clock we headed into the track and found our seats. It was going to be a long night so dinner was next. Over-priced food and drink is the norm, just like other sports. Ann had a philly steak and lemonade. I had a polish sausage with green peppers and onions and a coke. We shared a soft pretzel for desert.

The race started at about 7:30 and continued until almost midnight. It was a good race with lots of action. I wasn't thrilled that Jeff Gordon won but Ann was happy.

After the race it took us about 45 minutes to get to the car. We then SAT in the parking lot for over an hour without moving. Once we did get moving we were out pretty quickly and on our way. We pulled up to the KOA at three o'clock a.m. It was a long day.

Picture shows some of the pre-race fireworks. The movie shows the cars crossing the start/finish line and heading into turn one at the start of the race.