We got to our seats around 10:00. A little while later, Mark and Manny showed up. We decided to grab a bite to eat before the race started, so we headed for the "Roma II" concession. They have the most delicious stromboli and calzones. I highly reccommend them to any race-goer. Food in hand, we settled back to watch the race.
We were still waiting for our stromboli during driver introductions, but we could hear the crowd. Tony Stewart got more boos than I've ever heard for Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt combined! In fact, I didn't think Jeff got all that many boos this year. Mom and I discussed it and decided that it must be a lot like what happened to Darrell Waltrip some years back. He used to get booed a lot in the old days -- that is, until his incident with Rusty Wallace during the Winston. After that, ol' DW didn't get nearly as many boos, and Rusty got them all the time. DW got really popular with a lot of people after that. So maybe some of the Anyone-But-Gordon crowd is starting to come around....
During the pre-race ceremonies, there were tributes to Dale Earnhardt. Nothing nearly as spectacular as some of the other tracks, but nice, still. Governor Rick Perry sent an official to publicly declare April 1, 2001 as "Dale Earnhardt Day" in the state of Texas. Eddie Gossage announced the track's plans to open the new highway overpass across I-35W to the track (it's a much needed entrance to the track on the north side). The new roadway will be named "Dale Earnhardt Way". The tributes also featured a fly-by of a B-1 Stealth Bomber (awesome plane, if you've never seen one up close).
My own picture of the sign didn't turn out. This one came from the Texas Motor Speedway website.
Most of my race photos are garbage. Eight rolls, and only a handful could be salvaged. Oh well. Here's a few shots.
I should mention that Dale Jr. got LOTS of cheers all weekend. Every time he or his car came out of the garage, the whole crowd let out a thundering "Yeah!" Tony Stewart, on the other hand, got resounding "Boos" everytime the crowd spotted him.
At some point during the race, Mom commented that there didn't seem to be as much trash floating around and winding up on grills as on other tracks in the series. I don't know if you just happen to see more of it on TV because of the angles, or if there really was less trash. Hmmmm.... Maybe those "Don't Mess with Texas" adds are really starting to work.
I listened in on Dale Jr. for most of the race. One thing I noticed was that they didn't talk much at all in the early stages of the race. After a caution, if Junior was in the lead, his spotter would tell him he had the start to himself, saying something like, "You know how to do it." The spotter would only call the restart for him if he was behind other cars.
Around lap 160, while Steve Park was leading the race, Dale Jr. was running 2nd. Over the scanner, I heard Junior tell his spotter to "Tell Steve I'm having fun out here." A few minutes later he asked how Park's car was doing, and his spotter told him, "Good." Junior also thanked his teammate for running high in the corners, which gave him some much needed air on the nose in turns one and two.
After a mid-race pit stop, I thought I heard Junior say, "You people better work on your people skills." I later decided that he told them to work on his "pit" skills, because shortly after that, Junior asked, "What are you working on?". It came across as meaning they must not be working on their tire set-ups. He described his tires as "crap" and commented that they were too stiff. Someone came on the radio and said that he had two sets of tires left and he was trying to get rid of a set to keep the good ones for the end of the race.
Heard around lap 289: "This is about as good as the car's been all day." Junior had been in the lead for a while and was stretching it out a bit.
Lap 307, talking about lapped traffic, "Talk to these people and the 'em to move high!" A minute later, "If we win this race... is going to depend on you Tye." Tye later came on the radio and told Junior that the 94 car "said he'd go high" to let Junior pass.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed that Junior didn't win. Dale Earnhardt was my favorite driver of all time, and since his death, I've taken to cheering for Dale Junior, Steve Park, Michael Waltrip, and Kevin Harvick. Of the four, only Dale Jr. lacks a win this year, and of the four, he's the one who needs it most.
After the race was over, we hung out in the grandstands to watch the Legends series run. If you have never seen a legends race, you have GOT to go to one. The first division was 7- to 13-year-olds. They wouldn't even get through a whole lap before one of them would go off-track or something. And those kids are aggressive. I never laughed so hard in all my life. We quickly decided that we need to buy into one of those cars for Steven. We think our little Mark Martin fan could kick all those kids butts, LOL.
We stayed there long enough to watch part of the 45+ age division before heading to the van. The traffic back-ups leaving the parking lot were horrendous, so we decided to wait it out for a while. We were getting reports from other parts of the parking lots, and we were told that they were only letting one section of cars out at a time. Two hundred THOUSAND people, and they are letting the cars out one at a time! We started to wonder if we would be there for days.
While sitting in the van, we watched the other race-goers who were trying to leave. A line of cars were at a dead stop directly in front of us. One was a big van full of girls. Several of them were up on top of the van, flirting with the guys parked all around them. One of the girls was... shall we say "less than saintly". I guessed her age at about 40, but Mark and Manny insisted that she was not yet 30, but had lived HARD. She gave a little impromptu "table dance" for some of the guys, and we quickly decided what she did for a living....
While we waited, Mom and I took the opportunity to try and convince Mark and Manny that the ONLY way to attend a race is to camp out. Come in on Thursday or Friday, leave on Monday. Forget the traffic. We've got the gear, all we have to do is convince Mark to take the time off. Manny quickly agreed, and I think Mark is starting to come around, so maybe next year.... But Manny was so ticked at the traffic, having to get up early just to wait it out, being stuck in the parking lot, that he wasn't sure he'd ever go to a NASCAR race again. Of course, his protests were a lot louder and more frequent in the morning BEFORE the race, but he was still complaining none-the-less. Now his complaints were leaning into the "the only way I'll go is if I can camp in a motorhome and take Monday off." (I should note that I got a call from Manny every day of the week after we got home, and each time he was more enthusiastic about the race, and starting to make all kinds of plans for next year... LOL)
After waiting it out a bit, traffic around us started moving, and we got right out with no problems. The trip home was uneventful (except for Manny complaining and an occasional snore from the back seat). Lesson learned: it really does work to just be patient and not try to leave right away. If you wait just an hour or two, the traffic thins enough to give you an easy trip out of the parking lot. So open the cooler, grab a drink, get something to eat, and sit back to watch all the fools around you. I guarantee you'll get an education. LOL
Until next year....
and much, much more!