The Track Walk before the Coca Cola 600

Danica Speaks to the Crowd

Every time we plan on attending a race, we always try to do something a little different that we've never done before. This time we decided to do the track-walk on the Friday before the week's two races. There were supposed to be some driver appearances, a concert, and free Coca-Cola refreshment! At first, I thought it'd be a great idea, and the boys were gung-ho about walking the track, but then I realized that it was a 1.5 mile track. This was not going to be a cake-walk with a 5 and 7 year old kids. 

Bubba Wallace
and Elliot Sadler

We got there just before the walk began, and joined the group of a few hundred. They had a Coca-Cola truck on the track with an emcee who had access to quite a few t-shirts to throw. He also interviewed the drivers as they appeared from the innards of the truck. As we leisurely walked around the track, we heard from Danica Patrick, Bubba Wallace, Elliot Sadler, and yes, my favorite driver Smoke was present. While they did a good job keeping the crowd away from the drivers, it was still great to hear from them and get a few photos as they spoke. Bubba and Elliot were kind enough to sign some autographs and get photos with some of their fans. This made the walk go by so fast- before we knew it, we were in turn three!



We've actually driven the track in my 2004 Astrovan before (see here), but the boys were really surprised how steep the banking was on the track. Once we'd gotten to turn 4, the boys and I ventured up to the top of the track. One of them dropped their water bottle and it quickly rolled to the bottom spraying all of it's water as it hit the interior wall, and thankfully, missing the other walkers as it rolled by.


After the walk, the people at Coca-Cola had tubs full of all sorts of Coke products for the walkers to enjoy, games to play, as well as freebies to hand out. The boys and I sat on the green grass right outside of pit road and enjoyed our drinks and the concert.