Epic East Coast - Day 37

My back route to the race track was a bit more rural than I expected, as I found an actual grid road.  We (Alex, Evan and I) did arrive at the track on time and without any traffic, so it was a success.  After parking, I found a scanner rental trailer and picked one up for the weekend.  I could not find any of the merch trucks (which don't actually exist anymore; they have a giant set of tents for shopping), so I asked at an information booth and we were directed across the track into the infield.

The infield at a three mile road coarse is big, and we walked through a large area of displays setup by car sponsors.  Some had large lines due to driver Q&A sessions, while most of the others were giving away branded merchandise, if you signed up for some offer / contest so that they had your name and address.  We got suckered into the Geico area, though I didn't enter the contest and the kids got a bag and played a bean bag toss game for a can holder.

We eventually found the giant merch tent and went shopping.  I picked up a Richard Petty shirt, since I had such a fun time at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, while Alex bought a small race car and Evan found some NASCAR trading cards.  The kids then demanded we find our seats as there was only an hour before the Sprint Cup practice started.  Our tickets are in the turn 1 grandstand, but for this race we could have sat wherever we wanted.  If I had thought more about it I may have gone somewhere else, but I didn't, so we just sat in our actual seats.

Qualifying was OK.  Not super interesting, as all the cars are on the track at the same time, which means things happen quickly.  Jeff Gordon's first lap had him 12th, but by the time he finished his cool down lap he was 21st.

The XFINITY race started with the national anthems and they set off fireworks during "the rockets red glare" which startled everyone in the stands and led to the entire grandstand chuckling and talking during the end of the anthem (which included more fireworks).

The race started off sluggish, with a bunch of cautions and a red flag, but it finished with some good racing between Logano and Keselowski.  Evan loved the entire race.  Alex liked parts, but the sun bugged him and he spent part of the race sitting in my shadow reading the race program.  Despite liberal sunscreen applications, we all burnt the top of our legs, since this is the first time we've spent a day sitting the sun rather than walking around in the sun.

After the race was over, we sat in the parking lot for almost 40 minutes before the traffic line even started moving, though once that happened we were easily able to drive out onto the highways and leave the traffic behind.  I am fully expecting that we will sit in the parking lot for twice that length tomorrow, since the stands were only half full today.

Sandra
The other half of us hung out in our apartment in the tiny town of Penn Yan.  I thought that Jonathan, Bradley and I might find a park or some such thing but they didn't want to do anything.  Jonathan didn't even get out of his PJs until lunch time.  I did convince them to go out to visit a candy store (and that took convincing) but it turned out that it was closed for the day.  Next door was a shop selling local goods and a little cafe so we got dessert instead.  It was a not for profit that provides food to disadvantaged kids when they're not at school.  After that, it was back to the apartment for naps.  We are in a bit of Amish country here and sure enough, as we were napping, I heard the clip clop of horses hooves.  I looked out the window to see an Amish buggy driving down main street.  That was our big excitement for the day.