Here are some pictures from last week. The one is where I'm getting a signature on a cookbook from Jeff Gordon's mom and Martha Earnhardt (Dale Earnhardt, Jr's grandmother) out at the Hendrick Motor Sports shop. Another is of Tony Stewart's shop (Stewart-Haas Racing) and Penske race shop that builds cars for Kurt Busch. Wow, what clean places where they build cars. You felt like you could eat your lunch off the floor. The last picture is of us outside Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. We've now moved onto to Dover Delaware where the sun is shining again (although we still have thunderstorms in the evening). There are three races this weekend, truck on Fri, National race on Sat and Sprint Cup race on Sunday. As many say, lots of "turn left, turn left . . . "

Coca Cola 600 race

It has been quite a week of rain, rain and more rain. Seems like every race we went to this week was threated with rain. Yesterday's Coca Cola 600 was rained out (after we sat in the stands for hours under rain gear). Today the race ended just past half way, again due to rain. For those of you non-NASCAR fans,the race can be called if it has gone half-way. Earnhardt Jr did absolutely terrible. Seems his car was too loose all day and a couple of times he almost lost it in the wall. Things were pretty quiet on his radio (which is odd because he gets pretty upset usually). We will leave the track tomorrow and head to Dover DE for our last race of this spring.
Otherwise, things are going well and we are having fun.

This last week in Charlotte NC has been busy. Wednesday we went out to Victory Junction Gang Camp. For those of you that don't know anything about it, this camp was started in memory of Adam Petty (Richard Petty's grandson) after he was killed at a practice session on a NASCAR track in New Hampshire. This camp provides a free experience for kids with serious diseases and disorders. Our club worked for a half-day weeding, then took a tour of the camp and ate lunch there. Most of the drivers have donated a lot of money to this camp either directly or through there own foundations. There is a complete gym, a covered baseball field, a bowling alley, a video game building, and a complete hospital. Every activity center is made so disabled children can also participate. The picture is of one of the dorms, which inside has a NASCAR theme.
Thursday we went to the NASCAR Research and Development center. This is where the car is designed, safety issues are addressed and car testing is done. They are in the process of developing driver seat standards at the moment. Even though the HANS device protests the driver's heads, there are no regulations on seats yet. In the afternoon, we went to driver shops. Thursday night we went to the Pit Crew Competition, where all the pit crews in the All Star race compete. Jeff Burton's team won. Friday was the "sit-down" convention. Mr. Pemberton spoke (he is head of NASCAR competition) and a historian from the new NASCAR Hall of Fame (which will open next May) spoke to us. Both were quite interesting. Friday evening was the truck race. Saturday we went on a garage tour before the All Star race. The picture is in front of #88 AMP energy, Dale Earnhardt's car. They are working on something in the rear end. Tony Stewart came away a million dollars richer by winning his first race as a owner/driver. The other picture was taken by Combos snack people outside the track at the venders. We have moved over to the track RV camping right outside turn 3-4. Out our front window we can see the track and hear them running on the track. We will be here until next Monday and then head to Dover DE.

SC and onto NC

We were under computer silence, as Verizon Wireless didn't work in the KOA we were staying. The races were good at the track too tough to tame. Mark Martin (50+ years old!) won the race. There's hope for us oldies after all. This is his second win this year. South Carolina started out nice and warm but started raining when a big storm moved in. Roy and I were fighting a stomach virus so we stayed in quite a bit anyway. Now we've moved on to North Carolina and are parked near the track in Concord. Tomorrow we start 3 days of our Nascar Members Club meetings. In the morning we are headed to Victory Gang Junction camp for a work day. It looks like today will be a wonderful sunny day.

Yorktown

We spent yesterday and today in Yorktown, VA. This is the area where the Revolutionary War basically ended (even though it was 2 more years before the peace treaty was signed). Here Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and Layfayette (from France). After this surrender, there were only a few more battles. The British were appalled that a rag tag army had defeated them here. The town is small, but there are houses with cannon balls still stuck in them. Cornwallis had taken the town and built trenches all around. The patriots surrounded them and the French ships took the harbor up the York river. There was a driving tour that took about 4 hours to go around and visit all the stops. Tomorrow we head to Darlington S.C. for more races.
Today was Roy's birthday!

Here's a promised picture from Talladega Race ending. Four drivers were madly racing to the end of the race. Keselowski tried to pass Carl Edwards, who was doing blocking moves (all while going close to 190 m.p.h!). Keselowski pulled up and Carl tried to pull over and they got together. Carl's car headed up the track in the air and Newman's car punted him up and the car rolled along the fence. As you can see it did a real job on the fence.
After Talledega we headed to Byron GA to have our RV water heater fixed. Just as we pulled
in the shifter panel went blank and we couldn't move the RV. Turns out the shifter panel went bad right in front of the repair shop with only 50 miles left on the warranty. Thank you Lord!
We spend 3 days there and visited Andersonville (the notorous confederate POW camp). Over 30,000 men lived on 26 acres with nothing but tents, and a creek for water and toilet. The picture shows a mock up of part of the walls. After 3 days (2 nights in hotels, we 3 dogs!) we headed to Richmond for the races. We met Jeff Burton at Walmart. What a gracious individual. He spent lots of time with the kids waiting in line for his signature.
We are now headed to Yorktown VA and then on the S.C. (Darlington track - the track too tough to tame or also called the lady in Black).