Well I headed out about 3:00am Friday morning with a nice little snow storm blowing through the region, didn't go to bad till about the New Mexico/Arizona border, when we were going about 40 mph because of the nice thick layer of ice on interstate 40, but took our time and made it through just fine, until we got to Flagstaff, where we ended up in another snowstorm, travel was discouraged, but hey we're race fans so we went through anyway again at about 40 mph for about 45 minutes west of Flagstaff, it sleared up and away we went. Anyway finally showed up at the Stratosphere around 2:00pm Vegas time. During check-in we found out we were staying on the top floor with all the vip's, what we did to pull that one off is beyond me, anyway got to the room dropped off our luggage and hit the casino and in front of one of the bars was Kerry Earnhardts show car and we found out the hotel was doing a drawing that evening for tickets to the busch race and the cup race, well I forgot all about it and found out later that night that Kerry showed up after practice to give away the tickets to the races and I missed it, bummer. A couple of hours later went across the street to the Nascar Cafe and about 5 minutes after we got there, Vegas's own Kurt Busch showed up for an autograph session, and let me tell you folks that guy is short, he was standing on a little stage and you could barely see the top of his head over the crowd and no I didn't get an autograph the line was way to long just for an autograph and that pretty much sum's up Friday. The next morning on my way to breakfast I saw one my group in the casino getting a bloody mary for the hangover and on his way down he shared an elevator ride with the one and only Terry Bradshaw, that had to be quite a scene considering my friend and Terry are both hair challenged and my friend is an diehard Cowboy fan, wish I could have been there for that. Anyway Saturday didn't do to much other than hit the strip for most of the day and wathced bits and pieces of the busch race depending on what bar I was at and if they had the race on. Early that evening was attempting to catch a cab in front of Bellagio and had to wait forever because everybody was headed out to see the Roy Jones Jr./John Ruiz fight, but finally made it back to my hotel and pretty much just took it easy that night, had a long ahead of me on Sunday.
Well a very nice Sunday morning finally came around and by 7:30am we were headed out and as we were driving away from the valet Terry Bradshaw walked out of the door, missed by about 30 seconds, bummer again. Fianlly got to the track after about 45 min. in the car and proceeded to shop and eat and drink and eat some more, then went to go find my seat. Sat in turn 4 section 4c row 7, kind of close to the track but we could still see all the way around which really surprised me. sat there for a few got my scanner programmed and ready to rock and watched the pre-race activites and driver introductions. The drivers got escorted around the track in Vipers and when they were pulling forward to pick up the drivers some of them put on a little tire smoking demonstration, sad to say the vipers got a louder ovation than some of the drivers did, well I think Tony and Rusty got some of the loudest boo's, Jeff Gordon was about half and half in the area I was in and of course Jr. got the loudest ovation. Finally pre-race activites ended (anybody notice there were no skydivers this time) and the race started and the front runners got a little spread out at the beginning, but of course I was watching DJ come through the pack along with Bill Elliot, these two drivers ended waging a war on each other for about 6 or 7 laps running side by side the entire time, great fun to watch, then the cautions starting waving, saw Craven and Foyt get tangled up it was hard to tell what happened from the angle I was watching from, then Sadler blew his engine which had me a little nervous about DJ's engine, well needless to say on the next restart, DJ got put into the wall, big time bummer. My fav. was out of the race but some good racing still going on, then all of a sudden a bunch of tire smoke in turn 2, Sknner spinning, Wallace in the wall, and a crippled Gordon comes rolling around the track, there was some cheering going on for the crippled car, but nothing that I heard like smack500 was describing, after that it got somewhat boring with a long green flag run and a bunch of fav.'s out of the race, we ended up leaving a couple of laps early and missed the Marlin/Johnson incident, another bummer. Went back to the hotel, kicked back around the casino for the rest of the night, left early on Monday with no bad weather is sight and got back home around 4:00 in the afternoon. All that being said I can't wait for next year to hurry and get here so I can go again.
Sorry so long winded, hope you all enjoy.
Well a very nice Sunday morning finally came around and by 7:30am we were headed out and as we were driving away from the valet Terry Bradshaw walked out of the door, missed by about 30 seconds, bummer again. Fianlly got to the track after about 45 min. in the car and proceeded to shop and eat and drink and eat some more, then went to go find my seat. Sat in turn 4 section 4c row 7, kind of close to the track but we could still see all the way around which really surprised me. sat there for a few got my scanner programmed and ready to rock and watched the pre-race activites and driver introductions. The drivers got escorted around the track in Vipers and when they were pulling forward to pick up the drivers some of them put on a little tire smoking demonstration, sad to say the vipers got a louder ovation than some of the drivers did, well I think Tony and Rusty got some of the loudest boo's, Jeff Gordon was about half and half in the area I was in and of course Jr. got the loudest ovation. Finally pre-race activites ended (anybody notice there were no skydivers this time) and the race started and the front runners got a little spread out at the beginning, but of course I was watching DJ come through the pack along with Bill Elliot, these two drivers ended waging a war on each other for about 6 or 7 laps running side by side the entire time, great fun to watch, then the cautions starting waving, saw Craven and Foyt get tangled up it was hard to tell what happened from the angle I was watching from, then Sadler blew his engine which had me a little nervous about DJ's engine, well needless to say on the next restart, DJ got put into the wall, big time bummer. My fav. was out of the race but some good racing still going on, then all of a sudden a bunch of tire smoke in turn 2, Sknner spinning, Wallace in the wall, and a crippled Gordon comes rolling around the track, there was some cheering going on for the crippled car, but nothing that I heard like smack500 was describing, after that it got somewhat boring with a long green flag run and a bunch of fav.'s out of the race, we ended up leaving a couple of laps early and missed the Marlin/Johnson incident, another bummer. Went back to the hotel, kicked back around the casino for the rest of the night, left early on Monday with no bad weather is sight and got back home around 4:00 in the afternoon. All that being said I can't wait for next year to hurry and get here so I can go again.
Sorry so long winded, hope you all enjoy.
