2006 Fall Race
Friday
Here's the photos from today. We watched the trucks come in before we went
down to the infield cafe. Mike and Mike were doing the ESPN show with guest Tony
Dorsett (former Dallas Cowboy). We decided not to stay for qualifying because
Mom was getting too tired.
BTW, Terry Labonte's car is really cool looking. It's a deep metallic red shaded
by photos spanning Terry's career. I tried to capture how awesome it looks, but
the photos just don't do it justice.
We were all broke, so we opted for nothing but infield passes this time around.
The week started out pretty chaotic. Hubby serves on the advisory board of one
of the colleges in Lubbock, so he had to go to the annual meeting for that. Unfortunately,
his truck broke down on his way out of town and he had to fly back. Top that
with a bunch of scout activities, Halloween, and school and community projects
we are involved in and we were doomed from the get-go.
Mom came into town on Tuesday (a day earlier than usual) so that we could drive
to Mineral Wells to check out the outlet mall there. They have TONS of NASCAR
t-shirts and jackets at extremely reduced prices, and we always threaten to go,
but never have the time. Unfortunately, we didn't remember that was why we told
her to come a day early until the week was half over, and it was too late to
go. We did manage to spend a day shopping the Half Priced Books and Movie Trading
Company, but we ate some Mexican food at one of our favorite places, and it didn't
sit well with us.
We got up early Friday and hit the track to watch the haulers come in. I swear,
one of these days, I'm going to get the PERFECT pictures of the haulers, and
then I'm never going back that early again. I thought this would be the year,
but something always goes wrong. This time it was the electric scooter again.
The scooter was charged when Mom left Lubbock on Tuesday. My sister and her S.O.
both checked it. We thought everything was going to be great. We were 30 minutes
early for the trucks and had a great parking place. There should have been plenty
of time to find a great spot for photos. But the scooter would barely move, and
when we looked down at the charge, it was almost dead. It also had flats on both
rear tires, which had been replaced very recently. Frustrated, we put the scooter
back in the trunk and walked down into the infield. I knew this was going to
be hard on Mom, she just can't walk that far any more. So she opted to take her
time and walk to the infield cafe, while Stephanie and I set up just inside the
infield tunnel.
We got some great pictures there. The lighting under the awnings was excellent.
But I still wish they would come in at sunrise like they did the first few years.
I really want to capture that photo of the haulers coming in with the beautiful
Texas sunrise coming up behind them. It's an awe-inspiring sight.
Most of the haulers coming in just drive straight through and pay no mind to
the fans waiting to see them. Sometimes one of them will honk for someone wearing
"their" colors. We got a good laugh out of the #07 hauler. The driver
wound up stopping in front of us, and he had his window down, so he shouted out,
"Are you girls ?" "A little bit," we answered, to which he
responded, "Me, too!" Then he stuck his bare foot out the window and
said, "I just woke up and didn't have time to put my shoes on!"
We met Mom at the infield cafe. Usually one of the local rock stations is set
up in there doing driver interviews on Fridays. This time it was ESPN radio with
Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. We hung around, hoping they'd have some drivers
come in, but they didn't. They did have former Dallas Cowboy Tony Dorsett. He
sat down to eat some breakfast before his interview, and we noticed that he prayed.
I was surprised by this because there are a lot of athletes (a lot of ordinary
people as well) who give what I call "lip service" to being Christians,
but who don't necessarily act like one off camera. It takes conviction to sit
alone in a crowded restaurant and say grace before eating. You just don't see
that very often, and when you do, it's not done with the same devotion and sincerity
as at home. (I hope I don't have to moderate my own post for that paragraph!
<VBG>) Any way, we stayed around until TD left so we could get his autograph.
While we were there, ESPN photographers took our picture to put on their website.
They said it would be up in a few days or so!
We hung out at the Busch garage during their practice. Then Stephanie and I went
to the driver area, as they were coming in and out for interviews. We found out
Dale Jr. was in the media center, so we went down there to wait for him to come
out. We got some pretty close-up pictures of him, but no autograph. Some people
waiting for him down the road were miffed that he wouldn't stop. They told us
he and his driver were rude and that he ordered them to "Get out of the
way" and "Move!" Which tells me they probably jumped in front
of his cart and he couldn't leave. What did they expect? They went on and on
about how they wouldn't be a fan of his any more because he was rude and ignored
him and his golf-cart driver ordered them to move. I wonder if they changed their
minds after they learned that he was sick all weekend?
We spent Cup practice at the garage fence next to Terry Labonte's "garage
stall", which was basically an empty spot at the end of the garage where
his hauler was parked (too many entries, not enough garage stalls). His paint
scheme was pretty special, which I stated earlier. Everyone was coming over to
look at it. I got some pictures of Dale Jarrett walking around it. He was there
for a long time, studying every picture. Since he was smiling, I can only imagine
that he was reliving some great memories he had with TL and also, maybe even
thinking of his own eventual retirement. He's covering his ears in the photos
because both the #44 and Bill Elliott's car were running and it was VERY loud.
Mom stayed in the Busch area. She's switched her Wallace loyalty to young Mr.
Stephen Wallace. She had me come over and take photos of his wrecked car because
her batteries died.
After practice, we went shopping along the midway. We found a stand that had
some great curly fries, and then another one that had a really good philly cheese
steak. Most of the cheese steak places at the track put cheddar cheese nacho
sauce on their sandwiches, but in Texas, we like it with WHITE cheese, like provolone
or mozzarella. This booth did it with Monterrey Jack, and it was pretty good.
I still cringe every time I buy something, though. $4 is WAY too much for a Coke
or bottle of water.
We didn't find a lot to buy. I guess this late in the season, they just don't
restock a lot of the stuff they run out of. For example, almost all the other
drivers had a long-sleeved motocross jersey. They were all identical except for
the logos and colors. But there wasn't one for Dale Jr. or Dale Sr. We didn't
see on for Harvick, either, but we saw people wearing them all weekend. Also,
the same shirt for Tony Stewart was $50, but for Matt Kenseth, it was just $20.
I found a Dale Jr. one across from the track for $30.
We also noticed there were a lot fewer trailers there than at previous races.
Usually there are multiples of every driver. This year we counted only 3 Dale
Jr., one Dale Sr., one Rusty Wallace (okay, he's retired, so it's good there
was one there at all), and most of the other drivers there were only one or two
at most. I'm almost positive there were at LEAST 6 Dale Jr. trailers in the spring
and at LEAST 4 Dale Sr. ones, not counting the generalized DEI, JR Motorsports,
Chevy racing, and Remington (don't recall seeing any of those except Remington).
We left right after qualifying started. Stephanie and I hiked up stairs next
to the Speedway Club to see what could be seen from the hill at the South Tunnel.
I was amazed at how much of the track you COULD see from outside, but of course
you couldn't get close enough to see turns 1 and 2 without a ticket. We talked
to the guy at the gate and he said a lot of people watch the race from that spot
because they don't have a ticket and you can see more than from the infield.
He went on to tell us that about 15 minutes into last year's Busch race, someone
came out with a handful of tickets for him to pass out because the race hadn't
sold out. So he went up to them and said, "You can't watch the race from
here," and when they said "Why not?", he told them they'd be watching
from the grandstands and gave them free tickets.
We knew Mom would never be able to make it up the stairs or back down through
the tunnel to the infield, so we just decided to leave after that. She was looking
really tired, and we could tell she was ready to go home.
(More in another post....)
Sunday
Nope, there is no Day 2. We were pooped from Friday, frustrated with the scooter
( we got home and plugged it in to find it was fully charged, so it was either
just cold or we didn't have it hooked up right!), and we had a lot of errands
to run. I know Mom wanted to go to the Busch race, but there was just no way
I could pull another full day out there and she didn't want to be down there
by herself, so we didn't go.
Sunday morning, we headed out later than normal. We found a better route with
less traffic, plus the handicap parking pass ensures us a good spot. We sent
Mom cruising on her scooter to the North Tunnel while we hunted down a Nationwide
golf cart so we didn't have to walk. Not too long after we got settled at the
infield cafe, Mom called me to say she was stuck at the entrance to the tunnel
without enough juice to go down in and climb the hill back out. So I flagged
down a Nationwide cart and he told me they actually have a cart capable of loading
a wheelchair and he'd send it for her. He dropped me off where she was, but we
wound up waiting at least 45 minutes and calling the dispatcher 3 times before
they came to pick her up.
Luckily there are outlets in the infield cafe, so we just plugged the cart in
there and she let it charge for 30 minutes while Stephanie and I went to hunt
down driver autographs and photos. I didn't get any autographs, but I think Stephanie
got a few. I did get some really close photos of Carl Edwards and a few other
people. Once Mom's cart was charged, she went in search of the perfect spot to
watch the race. She picked an area down by the South Tunnel where we could see
parts of turns 1 and 2 without anything obstructing our view.
In the mean time, it started raining off and on. At one point, it was sounding
like they might postpone the race until the weekend after Thanksgiving (which
would have been cool for us!), but then they started talking like they were going
to start the race earlier than scheduled, in hopes they could get it all in on
time. I'm not sure what they did, because we lost track of time once all the
activity started.
I loved that Christy Labonte gave her dad the command to start his engine. We
heard it over the PRN broadcast and thought that must have been really special.
Everyone at home got to see more of the race than we did, so I'll skip commentary
on much of that until after I have time to watch the tape. I did pick up some
pretty good scanner bits from the #8 car. Mom was listening to the NBC producer/director
feed, and picked up an interesting bit there, too. Apparently when Biffle's went
out, the NBC crew was laughing and cheering. Of course, this didn't go out over
the air, but it sure makes you wonder what's up with THAT?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There was a pit some time around lap 108. Tony Eury, Jr. wanted to take a 1/2
[pound or round] out of the rear and Jr. said, "No, I got a ------- good
car and I don't want them to ---- it up." He felt pretty confident they
could win this race. He did tell them what a great pit they had when he came
out 2nd after that.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Then some time after the restart:
Jr: On the next pit stop, get me a bottle of water about half full with some
Ty-Quil in it. Do you know what that is?
There was discussion among the crew.
Jr: It's on the Tide car
More discussion. Then someone said, "That's Triolsec....Prilosec"
Jr: I've had some bad heartburn all d----- weekend and it won't go away. I need
something. I need help. (Or something like that)
He went on to say he'd been drinking a lot of Gatorade and it was making it worse.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A few laps later:
Jr: This heartburn's terrible
Tony Jr: 10-4 on the heartburn's terrible. We'll get you fixed up on the next
stop. The leader's running 80, you're running 70..... [?] behind you are running
85 (?)++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At lap 135 or so, there was a caution for debris. Before the pits opened, Jr.
was saying he wanted to throw up. He said it was shaking him up.... "I drank
so much ... now I want to throw up"
Then, after the pit:
Jr: That wasn't the way I wanted to do that. What the ---- did they do? Crush
the pills before they put them in the water?
Tony Jr: They told us they dissolve in water
Jr: That ain't the way you're supposed to take those. They were down in the bottom
of the bottle by the back stretch and it wouldn't come up the straw.
Then Jr. proceeded to chew out Tony Jr. for "delegating it to someone at
the back of the pits twiddling their thumbs". And Tony Jr. apologized for
not taking better care of Jr., but insisted they were just trying to find a way
to take care of it without him having to get down off the pit box.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Later on, Jr. came back on with a comment about the bumps making him more sick:
"driving around in circles...bumps...shakes my guts up...got too much fluids
in me"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
After he scraped the wall, he said the #07 just took the air off him and he couldn't
hold on to it. They came in twice under caution to do repairs. At one point,
Tony Jr. told Jr. "We got some Tums here, Jun., if you want to chew on them."
But Jr told them, "No I wanna work on the car. I'm alright." He never
complained about being nauseous or heartburn again, but a bit later, he did say,
"I want a do-over."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
22 or 23 to go, Jr. wanted to pit for tires. But Tony Jr. was putting him off
and said, "One more lap."
Jr: The way these guys are running, we should have pitted 20 laps ago and I could
beat 'em"
Tony Jr: We're not trying to beat them Jun., we're trying to win a championship.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There was more stuff, but it was just little snippets and not all that interesting.
The #8 crew all have some funny nicknames like "2 beer", "Spiffy",
and "Hootie", although I haven't got a clue who's who.
I was sorry to be in the infield and miss Tony's fence climb. After the race,
we wound up waiting for over two hours for the wheel chair cart to come pick
mom up. We weren't real happy about that, and were even less happy when we found
out there is ONLY ONE such cart available for wheelchairs. I just couldn't believe
that! 250,000 people and only ONE of the carts can accommodate a wheelchair?!
I think we'll all be writing letters to the speedway and to Nationwide Insurance
(the company that provides the carts).
And that about wraps it up for this year. Can't wait for 2007!
I just remembered another funny scanner incident. It revolved around the caution
and the accident on the front stretch. Apparently, Junior looked up at the scoring
tower and noticed that one of the cars was still listed in the same position
as before the incident.
Jr: He spun. How can you maintain position if you're going backwards?
Then a bit later: I'm sorry I'm whining about it. I don't mean to whine.
Eury: That's okay. This is the time of year that you NEED to whine. (referring
to the Chase).
I thought initially he was talking about the 17 car, but it may have been the
10. Which ever, it was promptly corrected by NASCAR.