Lars/Tstran Winston Weekend Report

[Lars]

Friday morning we awoke to a beautiful Charlotte morning. It was sunny and was going to get up to 86 degrees. We made our way up to Hendrick Motorsports; driving by Lowe's Motorspeedway (Kewl!!!) on the way. Shortie (Kayla) had to see the Wonder Boy's shop. Lol. Started at the museum. They had a lot on display including one of the last remaining 'Days of Thunder' cars, Jeff's 1st Brickyard win car, one of Tim Richmond's cars & a tore up Kenny Schrader's car. I believe it was a Talladega car...didn't have a chance to read it because I had to take a picture of every Winston Cup trophy for Shortie. They had a large viewing window of the #25 team's assembly area.

Made our way up to Jeff's shop. Like the museum, they had a lot of trophies on display (But no trophy wife...*G*). But all we could see of the #24 & #48 shops was a view of the front ends of their cars from 100 feet away through a hockey rink. Even with the 85:1 zoom on our camera, we couldn't see much. We didn't stop by the chassis shop at Hendrick, not sure what we would have been able to see there.

Next we went to Roush Racing. Not as fancy as Hendrick, but nice. Had good viewing windows for all the teams assembly areas & of course I took lots of pictures of Matt's shop!!!

Then we made our way up to the Taj Mahal (DEI). No viewing areas & it was mostly a tribute to himself & Dale Jr. But they did have a nice display of Mikie's 500 win including the trophy. Also could view a room though a window of some of their winning cars including Mikie's 500 car. My kids were impressed with the trailer they had parked outside with the bathrooms inside. Marble floors in there too & fancy. Had pictures on the wall of the offices & the hallways & meeting rooms...WOW!!! Nice to see what $$$ can buy.

Then it was on to LMS to watch practice & qualifying for the Winston. We sat right by the start/finish line and had a great view of all the pit stops. When Matt's team pulled off the best pit stop, I knew he had a shot at the pole. When I saw the #17 flash up in the number 1 position, beating out Mikie, I jumped out of my chair screaming!!!

On Saturday afternoon we made our way to the track. It was cloudy and cool & had rained all morning. Shortie & I started walking around to check out all the drivers signing autographs. We saw Bobby LaBonte, Ryan Newman & Kurt Busch. We needed to get there early to get autograph tickets, but I was able to get pictures of them. Then we got in line for Ricky Craven & he pulled Shortie up on the counter and I got a picture of them together. That was Kewl! We also saw Harry Gant there & got his autograph & Steve Grissom’s too. When we made our way up to our seats we could feel it was going to be a cold one. Sat in the tower above across from the last two pit stalls @ the exit of pit road. We had our coats and long pants, but we still ended up buying long shirts to wear because it was COLD! Lol. We saw some great racing and I could tell Jeremy Mayfield was going to run away with the Open. In the Winston Jimmie Johnson had the car to beat…obviously. Too bad everyone knew that the entire 10-car field was going to be inverted for the final segment. And was Elliott Sadler mad at Ryan or what? Lol. I thought Sterling should have been the one whacking helmets off of cars. Besides Sterling, the wreck that Ward caused took out DJ & Rusty and one other driver…can’t remember whom until I watch the tape. When Ryan got ahead of Tony during the final segment, no one was going to catch him. Then caution came out with 5 laps to go. I personally was hoping that Kurt would get by Ryan. Not a fan of Ryan’s & didn’t want to see Tony win either. But Ryan was way to strong except for Dale Jr., who came out of nowhere. Dale tried getting Ryan loose a few times but Ryan was able to save it and win. I was happy Matt made it to the final segment, but knew he didn’t have the ponies to get Ryan.

Sunday was a sunny, but crisp morning, but it warmed up nicely in the afternoon. I got a wake up call from Irene :love: & we went to the Carowinds Theme Park & met up with her & her daughter. We had a blast and the best part about the park was the lines were never very long. So we were able to ride all the coasters we wanted. (This next part is for Irene only…I bought our picture from the Ricochet. I’ll scan it in & e-mail it to you…it was hilarious!!!)

Monday we had a few hours to kill before our flight home and we went to see Joe Gibbs Racing. They had a large viewing window over looking the entire assembly are and we could actually see through doors and windows into other areas of the shop. Also could see into their weight training facility. Like Hendrick & DEI, they had a large display with a lot of the trophies the Gibbs drivers have won over the years. Then we ventured up to Brett Bodine Racing. Not a fancy facility by any means, but I did see one thing that impressed me that I didn’t see at any of the other shops. The guys were actually working their tails off. You could see everything going on in the shop through their viewing windows also which was nice. And my daughters had fun playing with the BBR shop dogs out front also…lol.

Next Winston Cup race for me in Chicagoland…