Sunday, February 24, 2008

Greetings from back home



OOOOOOOh Myyyyyyyyyyyyyy Goodness, you will not believe this past weekend. You have undoubtedly heard of AWESOME Weekends, well this is my first AWESOME weekend in quite awhile.

It started on Friday, as most weekends do. I blogged from Lakewood as you may have seen, after a FINE SDSU Baseball game that the Aztecs had won 11-2 over #5 USD at TGS. I then caught up with my friends the May’s (BTW, Greetings Jesse, you can check out his 4 blogs at jemcam.blogger.com (you now owe me Jes)).

On Saturday, it was picture day for the 58th NSDC in Long Beach. Mom came up with Matty, The Otto’s, and Jeanne T., one other person was in the vehicle, but I don’t talk about trouble makers. It was extremely close for the Security picture not having Lost or Found in the picture as Mom arrived about 2 minutes before the picture was actually taken (thankfully, the rest of the committee allowed another committee to go ahead. Then the gang (The Otto’s, Jeanne, The Davis’ and Matty) all went to dinner and then went to the 59th NSDC Pre-Con dance. (BTW, Jesse, I still have that box in my trunk.) After the dance, Matty & I were supposed to go to his house in Carmel Valley (San Diego) and sleep before getting up and riding the Metrolink into Auto Club Speedway (Formerly known as California Speedway) to watch the Auto Club 500. Well, it turns out the May’s RV was available, so we ended up sleeping there instead. This was after Matty experienced a Croakers after party for the first time.

Sunday morning, rolled around and I was JACKED. I have been a NASCAR fan for maybe approaching 10 years or so, but had never been to a race. Because Matty is so connected throughout So Cal, he got us tickets to the race at Auto Club Speedway. So we left Lakewood and transversed the LA freeway system to get to Fontana. We went to the general parking lot, and rode into the speedway on a school bus. Matty was supposed to pick up the tickets from media will call, so we finally made our way over and they were there waiting for him. They were not just tickets, they turned out to be Credentials for us to checkout Pit Road, and sit in the Pit Road Suites. Also, in the package was a parking pass, so we went back to the car and drove onto the speedway grounds and thought they were for the grandstands, it was then we found out that they were for the Pit Road Suites.

Once in the Infield, we realized they gave us Pit Road Access until an hour before the race was scheduled to begin, it had been raining all night, and morning so we thought just on the off chance that NASCAR was going to be strict on the time, we better go and checkout Pit Road. Well, we got onto Pit Road, and Security forced us onto the grass infield between the track and Pit Road. So we hang out in the grass, and none other than ZZ Top began to play. SWEET!!!!!!! Then I turn maybe 30⁰ and what begins but driver introductions. Dummy me, forgot his camera in the car, THANK GOD for Camera Phones. So I took a few pictures of me in Victory Lane, and of the drivers during introductions. Security forced us off the infield, and up to the suite seats. We grabbed a seat that was maybe 6 pit boxes from the start/ finish line and a box and a half from the scoring pylon. About two boxes East (or to the Left, as we were looking) from the pylon was Hendrick Motorsports newest driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr and two boxes further down, was JEFF GORDON !!!! Mr. El Cajon, had the very first pit box/stall and that was about 8-10 stalls/boxes away.

When Matty and I left the speedway, the race had yet to go back to green, and well probably not go back until Monday. 87 laps were in the books, and due to a lengthy (1 hr 20 Min +)Red Flag due to a bad crash and water seepage and a couple of yellows and another Red Flag for rain. There was no way that the race would finish on Sunday. Look for the conclusion on SPEED TV on Monday from what will probably be a nice sunny Fontana, CA.

I have uploaded some of the pictures to my myspace account (www.myspace.com/mavricksd) under the AUTO CLUB 500 gallery. Check it out, til Edition 1.015 I’ll be seeing you! I promise in 1.015 I will have some funny news for you, it has been a while since I have done that.

BTW, There is a 85% chance that I will be back at Auto Club Speedway in August for the Pepsi 500!

1 comment:

Jesse May said...

Thanks for the plug

O we need to get that box to me somehow - in this year :)