May 26, 2009

Here we are at Lowes' Motor Speedway in Concord, NC for the Nationwide Series Camping World 300 on Saturday, May 23, 2009. This was in-between rain showers where both times the heavens opened up and unleashed a massive flood. Needless to say, we didn't get to watch a full 300 mile race. More pictures from Saturday night are in our Flickr album.

We started off our Memorial Day weekend lounging around watching tv in bed. Luckily, the race wasn't until waaaay later in the afternoon so we didn't have to rush to get anywhere. We packed up our race gear and headed off to Concord after 3pm. We had plenty of time for a quick trip to Concord Mills before the race, where Jamie used some birthday/Christmas gift cards at Eddie Bauer. That was our first trip to Concord Mills and I think we'll probably go back again when it isn't so crowded with holiday weekenders and race fans. As we were leaving the mall, we noticed the very nasty clouds hanging off in the direction of the track. We quickly (for the race traffic) headed down the boulevard and got parked behind the dirt track (across the street from the speedway). I could hear that Happy Hour (practice for the Sprint Cup cars) had just started. We parked closer to turn 4 and our seats were just before turn 1, so we had quite a ways to walk before we got to our seats. About halfway through our walk we came to an almost dead stop. People were POURING out of the stands. We looked to our right to see that it was POURING rain outside. But we were comfortably dry under the stands, even if we were packed in like sardines and not moving fast. Finally we made it to our grandstand and stumbled up my folks. We all stood between the bathrooms and concession booths for probably about 45 minutes before we heard the big jet driers come out to dry the track. Our race started about an hour later than it was supposed to. Luckily, the drivers were able to race to just past halfway before the rains started again. The driers came back out on the track, but the rain was coming down way too fast for them to get much headway on the mile and a half track. Finally the race was called and Mike Bliss, who took a gamble to stay out during the caution, was declared the winner. That was really cool because Mom and I saw Mike Bliss win at her first NASCAR race back in 2005. In the pouring rain, we parted ways and headed back to our vehicles. Jamie and I were back home before 2am.