Sunday, July 11, 2010

Charlotte May 2010- Picture Overload

In May, Macail and I got the urge to go on a trip for her birthday. It didn't take us long to decide to fly to Charlotte for the weekend for the Sprint All-Star race. I have converted to MaCail to a NASCAR watcher and she is more than willing to go with me whenever I get the desire to go to a race. We flew out of Vegas on the 21st of May and flew back in on the 23rd. It was a short but fun trip. When we got there on Friday, we went downtown and walked around. It was cool to see. We first drove by the Panthers stadium, then parked our rental car and walked. We walked by Bobcats arena and up aruond this outdoor area where a ton of people were hanging out. We got to see Whiskey River and look inside, no going inside that bar for us. We then went and just took in the rest of downtown before it got too late and dark to see anything.

On Saturday morning before the race, we decided to take a trip back downtown and check out the new NASCAR Hall of Fame. It had just barely opened and we took the opportunity to go inside. It was such an awesome thing to see. We got to drive a simulator around Charlotte Motor Speedway, practice changing a tire, putting gas in the cars, doing a qualifying lap, and waving the flags. We totally enjoyed ourselves and learned more about the sport. We also ran right into Rick Hendrick who is the owner of one of my drivers. He was such a nice guy. I actually felt bad about asking for his picture, because I was the first person to notice him and after I asked he had about 15 more people ask. It was such a fun thing to see.

After the Hall of Fame, we took off for the race track. The highlight of our trip. It was a cool race and just awesome to be at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This is the home of NASCAR so we got to be around a lot of die hard fans. The people back there were so nice and you could tell they love this sport. We got to see Denny Hamlin up close while he was unveiling a car that was designed by a fan. MaCail and I were both star struck to see him, we both kind of have little crushes on him. She has informed me I can marry him as long as she gets to marry Kasey Kahne. The fun part about this weekend is they do all these fun things at the track. They had a burnout competition that we got to watch. Joey Logano won this year. That was cool to see. They also have a race in race before the real one. Carl Edwards hadn't made it in yet, so he had to race in this one. It was a shorter one. Then the All-Star race came after that. Michael Jordan actually was there and he started the race. I didn't get to see him as close as I would have liked, but I still got to see him in person, which was cool enough. Kurt Busch won the race, which didn't make either of us very happy but it was still fun to watch and be there.

On Sunday, we got up and checked out of our motel and decided to check out some of the race shops. We went to Roush/Fenway and Hendrick. It was cool to walk around there stores. Because it was a Sunday you couldn't walk in the actual shops and see how things are ran in there, but that is something we wouldn't mind going back to do. We took pictures, but by this time our cameras had died, so they are all on our phones. We had such a good time. Thank you for going with me Macail. I am so glad we can do these things together and see things I probably never would have been able to see.

2 comments:

Matt and Jenny said...

It looks like you had a Blast! So, glad to see all of the fun and exciting things that you are up too. Miss ya!

April Leydsman Mason said...

Lucky Lucky girl. Live it up while you can. Looks like you had a blast. I miss you like crazy.