Gentlemen Start Your Engines

I can now call myself a resident of Charlotte. Monte and I got to truly experience NASCAR this weekend. Well, I don't know if you can say the true NASCAR experience. Monte got sky box seats to the race. We got to go on a pit tour that was pretty neat. The lady that gave us the tour is one of only a few female drivers for NASCAR. She gave us lots of insider information. It is amazing how much work and science goes into those cars (not to mention money). She talked about how instead of cleaning their windshield each pit stop they have clear stickers that have tabs and each pit stop they rip off the top sticker so the driver has a clean windshield. Also that the gas cans weigh 5 lbs empty but 80 when full. It takes 6 sec to empty the fuel can. They don't fill the tires with oxygen because there is moisture in oxygen so they fill them with nitrogen. I have to admit it was neat to get the tour. If you are going to go to a NASCAR race the sky box is the way to go. Air conditioned, soft seats, buffet and free drinks. What made the race even more exciting was the little personal TVs we got. The TVs allowed us to select a driver and see the race from the camera in his car, we could listen to any of the cars and their conversations with the pit crew. They also had a reply button you could use if there was a crash you could enter the car number and you could see the crash from their view and hear what they were saying. It definitely helped make the race more interesting. It was amazing to see how fast they drive and how loud it was. We did go outside for a little bit so we could hear the noise level. Before the race we walked around outside and you would have thought the circus came to town. If you like to people watch you would loves a NASCAR race. I can't even begin to tell you some of the things we saw. There are some very interesting NASCAR fans. We forgot to bring our camera but luckily the sky box gave us a goody bag which came with a camera. Problem is it is 35 mm so we have to get them developed and scanned before we can post any of them. All in all we had a great time. I won't call myself a NASCAR fan but I did have a good time. I told Monte I would go back...only if we were int he box seats again. Big thanks to Meggo and dad for watching the kids so we could go!