We were surprised by friends with tickets to the All Star race and the boys and I couldn't have been more elated to be able to attend. This was Caspian's (5) first All Star race and he was super excited to see Kyle Busch do his thing. We've met Kyle more than any other driver (see here) , and the boys have gained an affinity for the M&M car.
We got to the track about 5 PM, which is really late for us, and I'd encourage any first time Nascar newbs to go a little earlier, but we still got a great (free!) parking spot out by the Zmax drag way, we set up some chairs and had a little tailgate. We did a quick walkthrough of the vendor area and got our customer package from the people at Sprint (a cool camo hat!), and of course we had to stop at Toyota and see the M&M car and we met Kyle again (sorta).
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| Chrysler section |
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Thaddeus and Caspian hanging
with Kyle Busch |
Our seats were over in the Chrysler grandstand, section K. It was a great spot because you have a great view of turn 3 and turn 4, where a lot of the action happens, but you also have a view of pit road.
This years race was a little different in that they had the qualifying right before the All Star Race. The qualifying was unique because the driver would take a warm up lap, a green flag lap, pit at full speed, then one more lap. The full-speed pit made it interesting because the drivers usually struggled to slow down, causing seasoned veterans like Tony Stewart to fish tail as he tried to stop, and many missed their pit stall altogether. After qualifying there was a concert by Train, and then the introductory festivities began.
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Thaddeus reads jokes to
gracious stranger |
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| Brotherly love. |
The crew at Charlotte Motor Speedway know how to put on a show. The intros were started and concluded by the singer Jake Owen, and were finished off with a fireworks show to the delight of my boys. We were impressed with the people in our section. This part of the seating was labeled "no alcohol" and I found it very family friendly. The man next to Thaddeus was so gracious. He even tolerated the recorder Thad decided to take out and play while AC/DC's thunderstruck went across the PA system, as well as the jokes he decided to read to him during some downtime.
The only bad part of the race was the major wreck. The boys watched in abject horror as their hero got knocked into the wall at turn 3 and into 4. I wish I had taken a picture of their faces at the M&M cars was dragged by us by a tow truck. Instead of their faces, I got this picture: (no I WASN'T smiling on the inside) ;)
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| Kyle Busch's M&M car gets towed to the garage |
Needless to say, the boys had a blast and they are looking forward to camping at this weekend's History 300 and Coca Cola 600! This year I'm going to do a "scavenger hunt" to see how many pictures I can get the boys with Nascar celebrities/personalities. If you don't know who these people are, you probably should get to know them. I'll also put their twitter handle as well. Here's my wish list:
Marcus Smith: president & COO at Speedway Motorsports @MarcusSMI (and his wife @gassigirl88)
Donald Hawk: VP at Speedway Motorsports @HawkSMI
Sam Bass: Renowned Nascar Artist! (Both my boys love art!) @sambassartist
Matthew Dilner: host of Garagecam @MatthewDillner
Jeff Gluck: Nascar reporter at USA today @jeff_gluck
Jamie Little: ESPN reporter @JamieLittleESPN
Jeremy Clements: Fav. Nationwide Driver @JClements51
Darrell Waltrip: HOF driver @AllWaltrip
Tony Stewart: SMOKE @TonyStewart
Brad Keselowski @keselowski
Dale Jr. @DaleJr
S/O to MRO's own Scott Gentry- we better get a picture with you and the boys eating a hotdog with Slawsa on it!!! @SGentry_MROA
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