Boogity,Boogity,Boogity, Let's Go Racing Boys

Dale and I went to our first Nascar Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway. We have been watching trucks and equipment going past our apartment all week as they head to the track. Now we will see it all up close. We arrived at the track by 8:00 am to find many people had gotten there ahead of us. We walked down through rows of semi trailers- selling all of the merchandise you could ever want of each driver.

After a quick check of our bags we were through the gates and on our way. More displays, food stands the Nascar on Speed area. We decide to head for pit row and come back later for the “Raceday” prerace tv show later( which we never made it back for.)

At gate 7 we got our pit pass ticket and head through the tunnel and inside the track. We walked over a catwalk that we could see the garages.

And then went down to the pits and looked at the pit boxes.

We went over by the tent where the drivers meeting was held . We saw Apollo Ono, Jared from Subway, Robby Gordon, the track chaplain-Bowers and one of the senior Wood brothers

Then we were behind the stage where driver introductions were taking place. We saw and took pictures of many of the drivers. We only got three autographs because they were all in a hurry to get on stage.

By now it is 12:50 and we have to hurry back through the pit area and the tunnel, over to our seating area and up too many steps to our seats in the Petty section OO row 20 seats 15 and 16. After the national anthem and fly over, Apollo Ono said the four most famous words in racing.” Gentlemen start your engines.” That is when I put on my headset. Even with those on it was loud. It is so different then on tv, it seems much faster and much louder.

div>You don’t know where to look there is so much going on.
As the race goes on there is a few cautions then the “big” one happened. Thirteen cars were involved, luckily not any of our favorites.

I had the chance to cheer for Jeff quite often as he led the most laps of the race. The race seemed to fly by and soon it was down to the last few laps. My driver, Jeff Gordon was running second and with 8 laps to go took the lead again to win the race.

Dale’s favorite, Jimmie Johnson, came in third . We were so happy. After the race we had to wait until Jeff was done with all his media stuff to come and operate the track hoe to take the first piece of the track out. They will repave it before the next race in November.

We are already thinking about the next race in the fall. we can’t wait.