Back in the day a bunch of dudes said, “We’re getting taxed to death by the Man and what do we have to show for it? Nada, zip, zilch. And when we complain he sics his goons on us. Nuts to that.” They got their squirrel guns off the mantle and showed them what time it was. 200 years and some ‘change’ later and we have a government that wants to tax us to death and doesn’t listen to the common…never mind.
To celebrate our forefathers the NASA SouthEast road show had a one day race blowout at Lowe’s MotorSpeedway. The Lowe’s MotorSpeedway - you may have seen it on TV. We’ve done the oval thing before at Rockingham, which was fun until we almost got kicked out and subsequently banned. Comparing the Rock to this place is like comparing a Denny’s to a four star restaurant. It is MASSIVE, it has two go kart tracks inside of it, a dirt track outside of it, along with a drag strip and a huge RV dealership. The best part of going to the ovals, in my mind, is the sweet garages we get to rent / use. The one day event meant it was going to be jam packed with action. I had some routine maintenance to do to the car and since Craig has reclaimed his garage lift I had to roll old school with jack stands.
My extra small, crowded, and awkwardly positioned garage space, coupled with jack stands, and the 99+ degree heat made me dread this even though all I really had to do was replace some fluids (oil, etc) and change the brakes. Stuff I’ve done approximately 1000 times, that should take around 2 hours to complete, ideally. Unfortunately that 2 hours doesn’t include the 2 hours it took me to just unpack my garage enough to let me get to the car in order to jack it up. With that accomplished I remembered why working on jack stands sucks. Everything is harder to get to, and if you forget a tool it takes 5 min. to find it and get back to the position you were in when you realized you needed it. Not to mention the constant risk of hitting your head, or the fun of lying in a puddle of whatever it is you just drained out of the car. It took me two days to finish, but I triumphed in the end and only lost about 10 pounds of water weight in the process. My advice as usual is to pay someone to do this stuff for you.
[Speaking of hitting your head. Two episodes stand out in my mind. The first is pretty common I was concentrating on something under the car and my cell phone rang on the “workbench” that is really my trash barrel. I popped up and WHACK. But the worst, if you own a Bentley or Haynes auto mechanic DIY manual, the first step in any of their instructions is ‘disconnect the battery’. I was removing my power steering hoses and pump which are perilously close to the starter. Of course I didn’t disconnect the battery, inadvertently I touched the starter with an open end wrench which kicked off a massive spark and promptly scared the sh!t out of me. I popped up and WHACK. I was pretty sure I removed scalp with that one, but I guess my head is harder than I thought. Left a nice bump and saw some stars though which was cool. I climbed out from under the car and disconnected the battery…]
The Lowe’s folks apparently don’t value our business too much since they opened the gate from 4pm to 5:30pm. Now to get a car there so that you can finish your registration and unpack everything so that you’re ready to go at 8am the next day is a bit of a trick. Craig and I took about 6 hours to get to Charlotte,which should be a 4 hour trip. I can safely state that North Carolina has the ABSOLUTE worst drivers. Now you’re probably dismissing this as mere hyperbole. Examples – more people in the left lane doing below the speed limit but refusing to clear the lane than I can count, a man in a Cadillac on a busy two lane highway on a blown out donut tire not stopping but proceeding to drive along as if nothing was wrong, another dude that came to a complete stop in the middle of an intersection (in the middle of 3 lanes) with his turn signal on only to proceed to go straight once the light turned yellow stranding everyone behind him. It was so bad that Craig and I almost kissed the ground when we got to Lowe’s. Towing is a close second in sucky aspects of racing, right behind car maintenance, at least in my mind.
Threading the needle from the banking into the infield. If you hit that wall on the right (or left) you win a trip to the hospital and maybe a helicopter ride!!
Having gotten to the track in one piece we began the cannonball run of unloading, getting paperwork signed, etc. Craig didn’t have the foresight to rent a sweet garage so he was stuck out in the sun with the rest of the ill prepared. I think that was his punishment for not allowing my car on his lift. Since I’m a generous guy and you can squeeze two cars into a spot I let him park behind so he wouldn’t have to roast in the parking lot. We then did our obligatory race dinner at the local strip mall Mexican restaurant where the Rev. Al Taylor Esq. entertained us with his usual adventures in hoboism, and Brian Jones showed us his malformed elbow and attempted to buy liquor for high school girls. We retired for the evening at the luxurious (for track accommodations) Embassy Suites. It seems that when there isn’t a race going on Concord, NC has a lot of extra hotel space they aren’t afraid to let go cheap. Dave White rolled in around 11 with a night offering of 24 oz. PBR Tallboys. Not really the nightcap I needed since we had to be up at 5:30 ish to make our driver’s meeting and free breakfast.
[These are the things that actually make racing fun for me. I could sit around a table and listen to these characters BS and tell lies for hours at a time. Honestly, Al should have a spoken word album or something. I can attempt to describe him but it doesn’t scratch the surface of what he is like in person.]
Al was the only one of our crowd that had actually driven at Lowe’s before, and he was determined to make the most of it. He had a ‘new’ motor (as in used low mileage), a new paint job, and an Al first - NEW tires. No one had ever seen Al run new tires. He was clearly gunning for a strong finish. We lined up for practice and got ready to do a few yellow ‘orientation’ laps. The banking and NASCAR portions of the track are pretty straightforward, the infield road section not so much. It is like a parking lot with some stripes on it ‘suggesting’ the course. Once we did a few laps it all became clear, and actually was surprisingly tricky, much more so than what we had at Rockingham. I was right in front of Al as we pulled out but I let him go by after the yellow laps so I could follow and learn any of his tricks. As we got on the banking doing about 110+ I’m firmly attached to Al’s bumper and suddenly my windshield is filled with brown liquid. I immediately think Al’s car has blown up and I’ll soon be spinning into a wall. After that initial reaction I realize I’m not spinning but I can’t see. Reluctant to hit the windshield wipers since if it is oil it will just smear it around and make it harder to see, I’m left with no choice. Hmm, it just appears to be brownish water. Well with Al this could be anything from catastrophic failure to some type of amateurish smoke screen device or worse since he literally had to wet his suit and seat in a Lemons race after being in the car for apprx 15 mins... I go around him and continue to learn the track. As we’re pulling in I see Al and some corner worker dude pushing his car back towards the garages.
Racing is a cruel mistress and she had chosen Al and his big dreams to crush this time. He smelled rubber and thinking it was one of his new tires rubbing body work he didn’t slow down. Turns out it was a belt that came apart leading to a coolant hose exploding. Since he kept running a lap longer than he should of the engine effectively melted itself together. This would suck for anyone, but its extra suckage for Al, since he drives his car to and from the event. Thankfully he was able to get former SE30 driver Travis Wilson to come and grab him with his truck and trailer. Travis retired from racing on the Craig Geegar scholarship for nannies in training. He talked a big game about his impending return to the grid, we’ll see…. JP Coates also made a heroic appearance apparently taking a ‘long lunch’ from work to visit.
Travis coming to the rescue - cue Sanford and Son theme..
Qualifying was eventful, I started in first place but fell asleep at the switch and Johan Schwartz jumped in front. Content to follow him for a bit he had a 944 (or miata I forget some h0m0 car) hit and spin him out I was forced to mow the Lowe’s lawn to avoid hitting him in the driver’s door. With that out of the way and my toughest competition wrecked, I figured to start from pole. I came in a lap or two early and Robert Patton using Craig’s draft was able to nip me by a few tenths of a second. Getting a timing sheet when you think you’ll be on pole and finding you’re not is like opening a xmas present you “know” is exactly what you wanted and finding out its socks instead.
Starting in second was good enough, I had a rare poor start and Geegar mustering his every ounce of mojo (and probably cheating the start) pulled past 4 cars to wind up in 1st place. Another spinning 944 in the very narrow and very scary entry to turn 1 that bumped / hit me and then I bumped / hit Patton slowed us down further. Johan came screaming up from the back of the pack and got by, I settled down to closing the gap and getting back lost positions. Following Johan we caught back up to Craig who was clearly in “I’m in first place cruising mode”. He saw us coming and tried to get back on his game, but that allowed us to get in tight and using the draft I bumped Johan past and hoped to follow. I couldn’t make it happen that lap but eventually got around Craig and kept chasing Johan. We had a thunder roadster get in front of us and he balked Johan in the banking on the final lap. I kept my foot in it and we had a legit photo finish as we both split the roadster to cross the line. Johan ended up winning by like .003 seconds. But it was a great race and lots of fun. I awarded myself first place amateur division. With Skeen and now with Johan we’re facing guys that a) do some type of motorsports for a living and b) have tons of kart experience. You know the guys that race F1, they all raced go-karts since they could reach pedals. Johan FREAKING owns a karting company called EnduranceKarting.com , it actually looks pretty cool, one of these days I’ll get around to trying it out. I’m a once a month guy like the National Guard, these guys are like Navy Seals training day in and day out. Not really apples to apples.
WHAT a 944 spinning out, no way!
The second race used our finishing position so it was Johan, Me, Craig. I changed tires and managed to screw up a car that had been working well for me. Johan just drove away after the start and I struggled to keep up and keep Craig behind me. Craig was content to sit back and bump me on the NASCAR portions so that we could both make time. This was pretty cool, but once Craig caught me with the wheels a little cocked coming out of the banking at probably close to 125-130 mph. He smacked me and the back end started to wiggle back and forth while I closed my eyes and silently cried. When I opened them back up I was – due to my remarkable car control – still in a straight line but a little frazzled. Eventually Craig got by and I tried to get my heart rate back down to 200 bpm and stay close to make a move. Traffic intervened and it wasn’t to be so I had to settle for a lackluster – but safe and sound – 3rd place.
Too much bump drafting.
Dave White woke up around noon and came for lunch and our enduro race. Since it was only 1hr 30min. we didn’t plan on doing a driver change. He would go from start to finish. There was a small field but Dave did what he does and knocked out quick laps. We took the victory, keeping us solidly in 1st place overall for the SE enduro championship and the E2 class lead.
For some reason every 4th of July we run the Peachtree Road Race. This is a 10k foot race that I believe might be one of the largest in the country. I always comment on what a bad idea this is since neither Christine nor our friends, the Garretts, are what you’d call “avid runners”. In fact I avidly avoid running, since I hate it. It was an even worse idea after doing physical labor, racing all day, and getting home late at night after driving back from Charlotte. As far as I can determine we do it so we can go out for breakfast at the Waffle House afterwards, but as I’ve also mentioned a few times before I don’t really need to run 6.2 miles to eat waffles. I’ve tried training for it and I run it in around 1 hour and 10 mins. I’ve tried not training for it and I run it in like an 1 hour and 15 mins. I went with the ‘no training’ efficient route this time and knocked out my 1 hour and 15 min pace. I look at this like a mini cardiac stress test. If I can run 6 miles in the heat with no practice and not wake up in a hospital or die I must be healthy. Mission accomplished. We mixed it up this year and went to the Original House of Pancakes where I had an Apple Baby the size of a dinner plate. Mmmmm.
I then celebrated by unpacking the truck and trailer and taking a nap like an old person.
Happy Birthday America!
FYI thanks to the internet I can steal all these photos from other sites since I'm too lazy to shoot video or take pictures myself. If I use one, thanks in advance if you want I'll buy you a soda or something.
More Video?!?!! - how about deleted scenes
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Oh you said more cowbell? Anyway here are some more videos from Beertech's 380, you can see me passing him in these since due to inverted starts and DQ qual times he was given every opportunity by the race officials to excel. Unfortunately the many performance enhancing drugs he takes aren't enough to give him the courage he needs around the Rock's banking. Watch the Roll the Rock #1 Race around 5:53 mark when Travis bangs into him just for being Beertech (Travis is part of the Malt Liquor Tech crew). Something tells me we'll see some payback for that down the road...
Somehow I failed to mention that both Friday night and Sat. morning on the way to and from the track we were forced to go through police checkpoints looking for unlicensed drivers. On Friday night one officer quizzed me while another inspected my vehicle for anything they could write a ticket on. Sat. morning I was feeling a little more cocky so I asked the inbred Barney Fife looking security guard "We got stopped last night at one of these too. Do you all have a big problem with unlicensed drivers in North Carolina?" To which he replied "Yep - sure do".
After following some of the slowest drivers I've ever seen through the North and South versions of the state I think the problem isn't the licensing it is teaching them where the gas pedal is.
If the picture of the toliet didn't make sense that was another prank pulled while we were away from the track. It was positioned in lieu of a passenger seat. The funny part was I didn't notice it until we were almost ready to practice, and I had been at the track for an hour or so.
Also while changing wheels and tires Travis 'accidently' sat on my open hood causing it to shut partially on my hand. That hurt pretty bad, but not enough to take me out (like he had planned). Everyone agreed that was a stupid place for me to put my hand.
After Laughing Comes Crying....
Monday, September 22, 2008
[Editorial note – My PC is a little screwed up so I had a hard time putting up anything that wasn’t from my camera phone. Check back over the week for updates.]
In the mean time WORLD EXCLUSIVE Video from our friends at BrandNewEngine.com. I personally think this is some of the coolest race video I’ve ever seen.
At least that is what my mom always said whenever she saw me doing something that had the potential for ending badly.
The adventure begins as Craig and I headed off early Friday morning to Rockingham, NC. I leave the house at around 9:30am, plenty of time to avoid traffic (so I think). I'm in traffic merging onto I75 when inexplicably everyone in front of me jams on their brakes. Not expecting this I jam mine on as well, and quickly realize the little lady in front of me driving a KIA is about to become the meat in a train wreck sandwich. Using my hard won racing skills I dive off in the shoulder and grass with the trailer fishtailing behind me. No harm no foul as I zip by the line of amazed and terrified traffic and merge neatly onto the highway.
I meet Craig en route and head onto NC. We had to briefly stop off in Kannapolis to drop off a part at shop doing some work for me. Towing to the track at the best of times is a bit of a pain. My truck is probably 20 feet long and my trailer is another 18 or so. Next time you pull into your local Quickie Mart imagine the logistics of getting something like that in and out. You have to choose your gas up locations wisely or you risk getting stuck, like I did coming home from Roebling a few months ago. To make this problem even worse - approximately 60% of the gas stations we saw at any given time were out of gas, or had lines that looked like something straight out of the 70's. One interesting bit of trivia that we discovered, many of the vending machines that you find in your finer truck stop bathrooms are made in Kannapolis, NC. We didn't see the factory on our tour through town, but we did meet a very optimistic rural gentleman with as many earrings as he had teeth, he had a Ford Ranger pickup truck and seemed convinced that we were 'drifters' and that if he put a V8 in his little pickup he could be a drifter too. He added that 'someone' had told him all he needed to do was make a drift truck and he'd be turning sponsors away. He did a burnout to display his skills as he left the gas station parking lot. The good news is some of the cheapest gas (when you can find it) is found along 85. We filled up one time for $3.69 vs. the $4.19 they want here in Atlanta. Our gas easter egg hunt continued through the weekend since finding premium (93 octane) in Rockingham, NC isn't as easy as you would think. Our cars will run just fine on 87, but even 1 HP that comes as cheap and easy as running higher octane gas is worth the effort (and that 1 HP is probably just the placebo effect).
Our trailer troubles didn't end with gas stations. The shop we were going to in Kannapolis had a small driveway that already had cars parked in the grass on either side making a narrow crappy driveway even more narrow. Parking on the street wasn't an option so I pulled forward into a grassy area to allow Craig to park in the more civilized driveway parking spot. The shop shares a building with Speedy's pool hall - home of (you guessed it) Speedy, I know this because it said so on the sign outside. All I saw was a small rug rat kid (Speedy?) running around with no shoes and some old woman that looked like she had become part tobacco leaf. She immediately started yelling at me for parking in the weeds next to the shop. I hadn't blocked anyone in so I wasn't exactly sure what she was hollering about. I yelled back that we were simply dropping something off and would be gone in a minute and walked off. We go to "Suite B" only to find that quitting time on Friday's in Kannapolis must be around 3pm. I make the executive decision to leave our package on the doorstep and keep moving on. The sweet old lady in the meantime is sitting in her car looking like she wants to back out but my truck and trailer 10 feet away are somehow keeping her from leaving. My options are backing my rig up with this old bitty watching with her reverse lights on like she is going to ram into me, or exploit the one great virtue of American made trucks - ruggedness. I take the truck and trailer through the weeds over a small ditch and onto the road. Craig follows on the road more traveled and we're on our way to the Rock.
Rockingham is a former NASCAR track that has fallen on hard times. It is roughly 1-2 hours outside Charlotte in the absolute middle of nowhere. Just some of the NC state highways we were on during our travels 52, 177, 220, 74, 1, 277, 485, 17, 29, 601. Not to mention the 85, 285, and 75 that I need just to get out of Georgia. As an indication of the track's prosperity they recently tore up half the grandstand area bleachers and sold them for scrap aluminum. I don't have my MBA, but I’m pretty sure it isn't a sign of growth if you're selling off parts of the buildings. However, once you get to the place it is actually pretty cool. The banking is between 22 and 25 degrees. Which is about average for NASCAR, tracks like Talladega and Bristol are banked in the 30's. 20 some degrees of banking may not sound like much but it is easily as steep as your household stairs if not more so. The track is also pretty abrasive and bumpy, which doesn't lend itself to being easy on tires or suspensions. The Rock mostly exists these days to run some small time NASCAR-esque races (ARCA) and for some teams to do testing on. NASCAR has stringent rules about testing on the actual tracks that they race at, so since the Rock approximates tracks with bumpy and abrasive surfaces like Darlington and Atlanta teams use it to figure out setup tricks. For us the banking means going flat out for about 3/4 of a mile. The banking is odd since it does compress you into the car quite a bit, it also makes vision tricky as you have to look out of the driver's side window in order to see what is going on ahead of you. We spent the rest of Friday walking around the actual track so that Craig could get his bearings and see where to turn left and right! Early on we had discussed camping at the track since the local hotels aren't much different and some actually worse. Being old and soft and lazy we opt to try the Holiday Inn Express in Rockingham. My travels to obscure countryside destinations have shown me that the Holiday Inn Express is the Ritz Carlton of small town America. Craig and I check in and head up to the room over the sounds of our witty conversation we hear what sounds like 'romance'. We listen a bit more carefully and our suspicions are confirmed. The decision to turn on the TV loudly is unanimous. We then speculate that we may be hearing the intimacies of one of our racing fraternity members who had left the track earlier with his new girlfriend. Luck is a fickle mistress since he would pay for his nightly good fortune by going home Saturday afternoon with what sounded like an engine about to explode. Thankfully it didn't last too long ;)
Saturday morning arrives and we begin with our early morning practice session. I go out and have an absolute blast jamming around the banking. I don't 'win' practice but set a few quick times that seem to bode well for later in the day. Despite every evidence to the contrary I still seem to have this part of my brain that thinks I know mechanically what is going on with this car. At Road Atlanta I had been locking up my brakes, having replaced (so I thought) every functioning part that made up the braking system before Rockingham and not locking up a wheel I naively think that the problem is solved. I put on a brand new fresh set of tires, since my other existing set had some residual flat spots from the RA race. Pro drivers don't need ABS, they'll maintain that you can stop a car more quickly without ABS. Which (for reasons I won't get too much into here) is true. With that said, it requires skill, a car more properly designed for not having ABS, and an infield track not polished shiny after years of neglect. When you lock up a tire you make a small 'flat spot' on it. At that point it ceases to be round, and every time you do it, makes it easier for you to do it again. If you do it bad enough it can destroy the tire. I go out for qualifying and immediately start locking up time after time. Not just the rears, but the fronts this time too. Which was nice for a change of pace. Regardless I come in feeling good about my time and am rewarded with 3rd place. In a shocking development Travis Wilson beats out THE Mike Skeen for pole. As the race starts the world quickly rights itself as Travis goes skidding off the track and Mike regains 1st place, leaving me in... 2nd! I manage to pull away from the pack but can't get my braking figured out and Mike puts a pretty big gap on me. Towards the end of the race I see Travis coming through the pack and soon he is right behind me. I spend the last 4 laps driving as quickly and as defensively as I can to keep him behind and it works. I'm rewarded with my highest finish ever, which felt pretty good. Vic Hall of team Salazzar (pronounced Salad Bar) Racing made the trip down from Washington D.C. just to join our hi-jinks. Knowing that 6th place is probably the best paying position of our race - with handcrafted trophy, t-shirt, and free brake pads pulled up right before the checkered and let some people by to claim the coveted award. So in other words he is a sandbagging cheater. He also claims to be nuclear inspector, just like Homer Simpson. Lets all hope that they find more oil soon.
Since Rockingham has a low turn out, we are rewarded with an extra afternoon race. I had taken the time between the first race and the second to completely dismantle my instrument cluster. Encouraged by several of my fellow racers we look for a mysterious ABS relay that might have gone bad. It also seems in an interesting piece of E30 trivia, that if the light bulb for the warning light goes bad on the instrument cluster the ABS system shuts down. Now I hold German engineers in pretty high regard, but I'm at a loss to describe how a pretty critical safety component can be disabled by a burnt out light bulb seemed like a good idea? We check the bulb and sure enough it is out. However fixing it doesn't seem to do anything, which means that more electrical stuff is broken that I don't know how to fix. All of this goofing around means that the race starts in 15 min. and my car looks like a radio shack that just exploded. JP Coates knowing my mechanical abilities tells me to get dressed while he zip ties and crams everything back into place. I take the grid with an ABS computer dangling by my feet, no working gauges (speedo, tach, etc), and the instrument cluster simply 'pushed' into position. Surprisingly this works out okay, and in typical DTOM laziness I leave it that way for Sunday too.They start this race with the quicker guys in the back and we're lumped in with the high horsepower cars. Meaning 30-ish people on track. The flag drops and I think we were 4 and 5 wide on the banking going around. It is 3 or so laps of madness before everyone settles into their positions. I managed to finish 6th or 18th overall. But it doesn't really count for anything but fun. Which these crazy races always are. The Rock has a great viewing area so everyone gets quite a cool show since they can see pretty much all of the track at one time. That leads to the obligatory trophy presentation where Jim Pantas - Nasa-SE head honcho and amateur comedian MC describes me affectionately as Skeen's b!tch. We leave the celebration around 8pm with everyone several beers into the Sat. night celebration. Sunday morning comes along and everyone looks hung over and pretty girm. We quickly find out why. The "Spec E30" guys in a bit of sophomoric prankery (that pretty much has become our calling card) take Jim Pantas' "pink pantas" race car and park it on the start/finish line sometime during the night. The steering wheel had been removed so that no one could move it. The track management doesn't find this amusing, along with unsubstantiated talk about physical threats and vandalism leads the track to talk about shutting the entire event down immediately for breach of contract. Things have officially gone 'too far'. The entire Spec E30 group is called into a secret meeting room and given the high school 'we're very disappointed in you speech'. Everyone is appropriately shamefaced and apologetic for putting Pantas in a bad spot. He is a genuinely nice guy with a good sense of humor and no one would intentionally jam him up.
During one of the school sessions a car leaves the track and takes out a fence in such a strange location I'm still not sure how the guy managed to pull it off. The angry track people still looking for an excuse to kick us out, say this is a safety issue and want to shut us down again. Jim goes back in negotiation mode and agrees to put yellow flags at the corners effected. Unfortunately this means that 2 or the 4 or so corners on the track are pretty much off limits. We qualify right after this happens and no one had time to really explain how it was supposed to work to the race groups. I get behind Skeen for qualifying and we're cooking along when an RX7 rookie comes onto the track going very slowly. He gives us a point and thinking we're past the incident I pass he and Skeen to hopefully continue my lap. Well long story short almost all the top qualifiers get screwed up and disqualified for passing under yellow. Personally I think a little more slack should have been granted since a) the yellow was a joke anyway just to make the track people happy and b) no one really explained exactly what the yellow was for prior to qualifying. Regardless since I was the slowest of the 5 impacted I start DFL (Dead F-ing Last). I'm pretty angry at the time since I know it is going to be almost impossible to make big moves when the first turn off the start is off limits for passing and how close the competition is in general. I managed another outstanding sixth place finish but am frustrated since I would have liked to have raced with some of the other top guys instead of working up through traffic. Having had my fill of the Rock - hopefully forever since I doubt we'll be going back anytime soon - we set off for home.
VZ Navigator, which has supplanted my brain due to a complete and utter lack of directional ability when it comes to finding my way around, finally lets me down. For some reason it takes us roughly an hour or more out of our way and turns a miserable 5-6 hour drive into an even more miserable 7-8 hour drive. I'm coming around a corner almost home around 10:30pm at night and there is a car, dark parked in the middle of the road with some dude rummaging around the trunk. I'm side by side with another car and we both see him at the same time. The car gets on the brakes and has to skid off onto the shoulder to avoid hitting this guy. I lock mine up too not being able to tell exactly what lane the guy is in. The dude looks startled but doesn't seem to be especially concerned that he almost was crippled or killed. I gather the truck up and arrive safely at home after another exciting adventure in amateur grassroots racing.
I'm not 100% on my NASCAR history so this may be made up nonsense (pretty much like the rest of this site), but I think 'the Rock' was bigtime, before they built Lowe's Speedway in Charlotte.
The main problem with Rockingham - it is in the middle of absolute nowhere. Seriously. Imagine driving for like 45 minutes and not seeing anything resembling civilization and then out of a field springs a huge racetrack with bleachers. Pretty random. Anyway, this is a cool change of pace. The banking isn't very challenging until you get 2 or 3 cars wide, then it gets interesting. The infield course is pretty straightforward too. The Rock is like cake a little is good but you don't want to eat it for every meal.
It also is blessed with the nicest garages anywhere. Real pro style garages. This makes working on the car, hanging out, etc so much nicer. And as a bonus they're probably as nice as any hotel you can find in the area. So I'm considering camping out. My last trip here resulted in a motel room at the Day's Inn, that smelled like B.O., cleaning agents (faintly), and cigarette smoke.
Another piece of trivia - the Rock was used in the film Talladega Nights. When Ricky tries to come back after being 'on fire'. They show him testing, that is the track!
