Epic East Coast - Day 8

I slept fitfully due to the cold and ended up taking a Tylenol early in the morning to make my sinus headache go away so that I could sleep.  Breakfast at the hotel ended at 9:30am, but since we didn't know where else to eat in Charlotte, we decided to force everyone up around 8:30am and ensure we got breakfast.  We are far enough south that biscuits and gravy is a breakfast staple, which Sandra enjoys, as she thinks the biscuits are awesome, though she won't touch the gravy.  We then checked with the hotel regarding a package of portable booster seats we ordered delivered here from Amazon - they aren't legal in Canada, so we had to get them delivered to an American address.  Unfortunately, while Amazon had delivered them, the hotel no longer had any idea where they were, even though Sandra had phoned to discuss it with them ahead of time.  There wasn't much to do except order them again, this time choosing one day shipping, so that they would arrive later today.

We then headed out to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is just a block south of our hotel.  It was very quiet when we arrived, and not much busier once the morning kicked off, which was nice, as it was designed to hold a lot of people, which made it feel quite empty.  We viewed some static displays, attempted to walk on a 33 degree banking and then watched a short video about NASCAR.  The attendant in the video section asked about the logo on my Rider hat, and when I told him what it was, he said he had a friend from college who was now playing for the Riders.  Since I only know two players on the current team, I didn't recognize the name.  In the main Hall of Fame section there is a picture and short write up for each inductee, while the ones who were inducted this year have a car (or replica car) and a lot of memorabilia on display.

There were then a lot of interactive displays, cutaway cars and engines and so on, where you could learn about how NASCAR works.  Alex, Evan and I participated in a pit stop challenge, where you had to jack up a car, fill it with gas and change a tire.  It was kind of cute seeing the kids leaning on the jack with their feet off the ground, unable to move it.  There was a sample hauler on display, which Sandra loved because it was so meticulously organized.

Alex and I then participated in a simulated race, as he was the only kid who was tall enough.  You sit in a replica car and use the gas and brake pedals, so you have to be tall enough to reach the pedals to play.  First, you have to qualify, which is done in a separate area with just a screen and the controls, and anyone can do this - they have stools for the smaller kids, so Evan got to do that part, while Alex and I set our qualifying times for the race.  I got a lap time of 34s at Kentucky, while Alex drove conservatively to avoid crashing and came in with a time of 1:22.  While Evan was finishing, I watched another guy qualify who obviously knew what he was doing, as he was flying around the track and his time was 30s.  Of course, he arrived at the race area with us, so he was going to be tough competition for the race.

We got in our cars and then started a pace lap.  Most of the people driving obviously had little ability to drive and the pace lap quickly turned farcical, but six of us (out of twelve) followed the pace car around until the green flag dropped.  I quickly moved into third and was catching second each lap, when all the other cars that were spinning and crashing in front of us started causing problems.  On the sixth lap, I moved the steering wheel a little too much to avoid another car and ended up spinning into the wall.  You can reset and continue, but you've lost the leaders by that point.  I still managed to finish third overall, while Alex finished seventh.

Unfortunately, while Alex and I were having fun, Evan was getting sick.  We walked out to see him shivering and he felt hot, so we rushed through the rest of the Hall of Fame and gift shop and got back to the hotel, where we took his temperature and he is definitely sick.  We gave him some medicine and then decided to just rest for the afternoon rather than going to the children's museum in order to give him some time to recover.

We ate lunch in the hotel, had a long afternoon nap, ordered pizza for supper and had our package from Amazon finally arrive in the evening.  We then put the kids to bed and planned on putting the Rider game on (as it is on ESPN2), but some of the kids would not go to sleep, and the TV just made it easier for them to stay awake.  Tomorrow is my big race day.