Utah Race
I am in class and have NO IDEA what my professor is really going on about. Film/Doc theory should NOT be allowed on Monday mornings.
So I am going to recap my weekend in Utah hanging out at the track with Dempsey Racing.
I will get to the cut quote I am going to try and do this in order, in bullets. But just FYI the way the track is set up is that there is the paddock where the rigs are, and the back of the rigs face the garage, with a street between them. Then the other side of the garage is pit row. So there is pretty much unlimited access to the teams.
-First off Patrick wasn't there, but I knew he wouldn't be on Wednesday.
-The team recognized me when I showed up on Friday morning. That was nice.
-I had Joe shirts for EVERYONE. Which they LOVED.
-Donna gave me a Mazda hat (Patrick Edition, not Joe edition) which I think she had Joe sign. Cuz they all know I have mad mad Joe love.
-Talked with RayRay a lot. On this track they could get about 1 lap to the gallon, so 23 laps before they had to fill up. They also had to change the tires every time he came in, so about 4-6 times a race. Each set of tires cost $1600. So yeah LOTS OF MONEY SPENT.
-It was FREAKIN HOT out and I prob walked the one side of the track like 5 times, until RayRay told me to sit down. So I did, on the metal cart (which NEVER ride on if RayRay is driving haha). And just hung with the team. Cuz apparently my Mazda hat made me part of the team.
-I saw Joe, and acted like a fangirl and could not hold a coherent conversation with him. He shook my hand and said thanks for outfitting the team in Joe shirts.
-RayRay was OBSESSED with his facebook fan page. He really wanted to see it, after I explained to him what it actually was. So I took a few pics to post on his page haha.
-I loved just watching them work on the car. They let me go right into the garage (I was LEANING on the car) and observe. Which was way cool. I spent most of the weekend just watching.
-Got to see them AND JOE get all geared up for a practice session.
-Watched the practice session from behind the DR pit, was cool to see the pit up close, even though they didn't spend much time on the track.
-RayRay told me about the DP cars and how they are different. The DP cars always fascinated me. The Gentlemen Jack car was right next to the DR car and I always would watch them work on it.
-Jim finally came around at some point. He was really busy because he was pulling double duty, doing his Mazda work and also Dempsey Racing stuff. So he was only around for short periods. But I did give him his hug from Alicia. Which we LOLed about.
-I watched qualifying from one of the grand stands. We qualified 2nd, after leading most of the time. Nick Ham threw up gravel and that made Joe lose the poll by 7/1000 of a second. CRAZY. But still awesome.
-Donna is awesome and gave us a ride back from the grand stand we were at to the garage on the black golf cart.
-I FINALLY, after hanging with the team the whole day (Joe wasn't around a whole lot) got the courage up to ask Joe for a picture. Hahaha no idea why I could never do it. He was all sweaty from qualifying, and the joke was that I would never shower again. (I did, cuz that is just crazy stalkerish. And well I was all gross from being at the track all day.)
-I had to head out after qualifying, I had to go to a BBQ if I wanted to get dinner haha. So I didn't get to stay and watch Charles race in KONI.
-RACE DAY. Got up, was still dead tired, but made it out to the track (it took me about an hour from where I was staying at my friends place).
-Dave and I had lots of fun making fun of RayRay and Diana. Dave might be my favorite crew member. We talked about random crap.
-Bill, another awesome crew member, was stripping the tires using heat and a metal spatula thingy (blanking on the proper name). He explained it was because if you are not going fast enough on the track a lot of crap can build up on them, so they have to strip them down, so they can still use them. It's also why when the pace car is out, you see the cars weaving back and forth. They are trying to get the crap off their tires.
-I kept giggling cuz I could see Robin Liddel 2 garages over cuz that is where Stevenson Motorsports was at. And well...I like him. That is my 2nd fav team (I will get to that a bit later). And well I think he is cute.
-I SAW LEIGH DUFFY (From SPEED) in the garage next to us and freaked out a bit about that too. Cuz he is my favorite announcer. (I think it's the accent!) But I couldn't bring myself to get a picture.
-The team got ready for their ONE practice of the day.
Joe getting in the car.
Donna helping him strap in
Pushing the car out of the garage.
The cars waiting to get on the track
Joe heading to the track entrance.
-I watched practice at the last turn, right before the straight away. It was also where they had to enter pit lane. Sweet spot.
-After practice I headed back to the rig and took a seat on the black golf cart and just people watched.
-I helped Donna set up for the autograph session.
-Then I headed over to where I could see the track and I watched Charles race in the Mazda MX-5 race. He got 2nd which was sweet.
-When I got back it was during the autograph session, and Joe was at the table all by himself. It was sad. People would come up but still...no Patrick to sign with him. So I am a freak and went and got his autograph. He added some personal touches to the card.
-I was a traitor for a second and went and got my picture and autograph with the Stevenson team. It was kind of awesome cuz Andrew Davis (on the left) recognized me from Montreal. (It was prob the Joe shirt)
-I went back and sat on the back of the rig, behind Joe while he was doing his session. It seems that a lot of the other racers are doing the Dempsey Challenge, which is cool.
-While I was sitting there talking to Jim, Charles came back from his Podium. He walked up to Joe unzipped the top of his fire suit, and then pulled his shirt down and asked Joe to sign his chest. Joe was CLUELESS and just asked him about his race. HAHAHA it was HILARIOUS.
-While the team got ready for the race. I just sat back and people watched mostly. ( This is Dave workin on the car.)
-At some point, and I have NO IDEA WHY, we were talking to Jim and RayRay came up and kissed him on the cheek and then Jim kissed RayRay on the cheek. I just...no idea why. Crazy boys.
-Donna gave us some sun screen (cuz she is the team mom) and some water. When I went to give the sun screen back I popped my head into the rig and she told me to come in and she gave me a tour. It's pretty sweet. I was very tempted to take a picture of Patrick's locker (That while everyone's locker is labeled with just their first name, Patrick's says "Patrick Dempsey) but I didn't.
-While I hanging out on the back of the rig JOE'S WIFE and 2 daughters came up. It was slightly embarrassing because I was in my Joe gear. But his wife is really nice and his daughters are adorable.
-Joe came up and gave his daughter (and me) a lesson in meteorology (it looked like it was going to rain and he explained, in scientific terms, why it was going to miss us). I asked him how the hell he knew all that and he said it was cuz he was a geek. He also has like 2 different degrees.
-Ron was going to the rig to get changed into his fire suit, or as he said "TIME TO GET NAKED!!". When he came out a couple min later, when I was walking RIGHT in front of the door, I was like "I'm glad you didn't open that any sooner." And he told me "It's ok, my boxers are not very special today." It was HILARIOUS.
-Once it was getting closer to the race, I let the team get ready and hiked over to where I was going to watch the race. I plopped myself down in the HEAT and got all settled in.
Here are the cars/teams getting in starting position.
-Start of the Race.
-Lets just say the race was frustrating and sad. Charles and Joe both almost died (hose kept coming lose and carbon monoxide was leaking). There was dirty/foul play. Charles spun out RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME again. And well we didn't finish the race (with 5mins left). The car also got pretty beat up.
-So yeah the team wasn't to happy after that. They were just loading up the gear. While they were doing this I ended up entertaining Joe's youngest daughter, WHO IS SO ADORABLE. She is also much better at Hi-5s than her dad.
-Finally after Joe got back and I could tell he was REALLY REALLY not in the mood I just said bye to who was around (didn't see Jim, he was busy with a bunch of crap that went down) and headed out.
It sucks that the race didn't end well, but I still had a blast with the team. They are all amazing and make you feel welcome. I prob forgot a ton of stuff that happened cuz there is always something entertaining going on with the Dempsey Racing team.
No idea when I will see them next, as it seems the race I was planning on making it to next season might not happen. I would love to try to make it out to Miller again but it's going to be about a 10 hour drive from LA and well hopefully I will be working so, less free time. But I shall try to make it to another race, and well I have a few of the crew members on my facebook so I will keep in touch.
Here are some more of my pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=34729&id=1133040046&l=e3239aac94
So I am going to recap my weekend in Utah hanging out at the track with Dempsey Racing.
I will get to the cut quote I am going to try and do this in order, in bullets. But just FYI the way the track is set up is that there is the paddock where the rigs are, and the back of the rigs face the garage, with a street between them. Then the other side of the garage is pit row. So there is pretty much unlimited access to the teams.
-First off Patrick wasn't there, but I knew he wouldn't be on Wednesday.
-The team recognized me when I showed up on Friday morning. That was nice.
-I had Joe shirts for EVERYONE. Which they LOVED.
-Donna gave me a Mazda hat (Patrick Edition, not Joe edition) which I think she had Joe sign. Cuz they all know I have mad mad Joe love.
-Talked with RayRay a lot. On this track they could get about 1 lap to the gallon, so 23 laps before they had to fill up. They also had to change the tires every time he came in, so about 4-6 times a race. Each set of tires cost $1600. So yeah LOTS OF MONEY SPENT.
-It was FREAKIN HOT out and I prob walked the one side of the track like 5 times, until RayRay told me to sit down. So I did, on the metal cart (which NEVER ride on if RayRay is driving haha). And just hung with the team. Cuz apparently my Mazda hat made me part of the team.
-I saw Joe, and acted like a fangirl and could not hold a coherent conversation with him. He shook my hand and said thanks for outfitting the team in Joe shirts.
-RayRay was OBSESSED with his facebook fan page. He really wanted to see it, after I explained to him what it actually was. So I took a few pics to post on his page haha.
-I loved just watching them work on the car. They let me go right into the garage (I was LEANING on the car) and observe. Which was way cool. I spent most of the weekend just watching.
-Got to see them AND JOE get all geared up for a practice session.
-Watched the practice session from behind the DR pit, was cool to see the pit up close, even though they didn't spend much time on the track.
-RayRay told me about the DP cars and how they are different. The DP cars always fascinated me. The Gentlemen Jack car was right next to the DR car and I always would watch them work on it.
-Jim finally came around at some point. He was really busy because he was pulling double duty, doing his Mazda work and also Dempsey Racing stuff. So he was only around for short periods. But I did give him his hug from Alicia. Which we LOLed about.
-I watched qualifying from one of the grand stands. We qualified 2nd, after leading most of the time. Nick Ham threw up gravel and that made Joe lose the poll by 7/1000 of a second. CRAZY. But still awesome.
-Donna is awesome and gave us a ride back from the grand stand we were at to the garage on the black golf cart.
-I FINALLY, after hanging with the team the whole day (Joe wasn't around a whole lot) got the courage up to ask Joe for a picture. Hahaha no idea why I could never do it. He was all sweaty from qualifying, and the joke was that I would never shower again. (I did, cuz that is just crazy stalkerish. And well I was all gross from being at the track all day.)
-I had to head out after qualifying, I had to go to a BBQ if I wanted to get dinner haha. So I didn't get to stay and watch Charles race in KONI.
-RACE DAY. Got up, was still dead tired, but made it out to the track (it took me about an hour from where I was staying at my friends place).
-Dave and I had lots of fun making fun of RayRay and Diana. Dave might be my favorite crew member. We talked about random crap.
-Bill, another awesome crew member, was stripping the tires using heat and a metal spatula thingy (blanking on the proper name). He explained it was because if you are not going fast enough on the track a lot of crap can build up on them, so they have to strip them down, so they can still use them. It's also why when the pace car is out, you see the cars weaving back and forth. They are trying to get the crap off their tires.
-I kept giggling cuz I could see Robin Liddel 2 garages over cuz that is where Stevenson Motorsports was at. And well...I like him. That is my 2nd fav team (I will get to that a bit later). And well I think he is cute.
-I SAW LEIGH DUFFY (From SPEED) in the garage next to us and freaked out a bit about that too. Cuz he is my favorite announcer. (I think it's the accent!) But I couldn't bring myself to get a picture.
-The team got ready for their ONE practice of the day.
Joe getting in the car.
Donna helping him strap in
Pushing the car out of the garage.
The cars waiting to get on the track
Joe heading to the track entrance.
-I watched practice at the last turn, right before the straight away. It was also where they had to enter pit lane. Sweet spot.
-After practice I headed back to the rig and took a seat on the black golf cart and just people watched.
-I helped Donna set up for the autograph session.
-Then I headed over to where I could see the track and I watched Charles race in the Mazda MX-5 race. He got 2nd which was sweet.
-When I got back it was during the autograph session, and Joe was at the table all by himself. It was sad. People would come up but still...no Patrick to sign with him. So I am a freak and went and got his autograph. He added some personal touches to the card.
-I was a traitor for a second and went and got my picture and autograph with the Stevenson team. It was kind of awesome cuz Andrew Davis (on the left) recognized me from Montreal. (It was prob the Joe shirt)
-I went back and sat on the back of the rig, behind Joe while he was doing his session. It seems that a lot of the other racers are doing the Dempsey Challenge, which is cool.
-While I was sitting there talking to Jim, Charles came back from his Podium. He walked up to Joe unzipped the top of his fire suit, and then pulled his shirt down and asked Joe to sign his chest. Joe was CLUELESS and just asked him about his race. HAHAHA it was HILARIOUS.
-While the team got ready for the race. I just sat back and people watched mostly. ( This is Dave workin on the car.)
-At some point, and I have NO IDEA WHY, we were talking to Jim and RayRay came up and kissed him on the cheek and then Jim kissed RayRay on the cheek. I just...no idea why. Crazy boys.
-Donna gave us some sun screen (cuz she is the team mom) and some water. When I went to give the sun screen back I popped my head into the rig and she told me to come in and she gave me a tour. It's pretty sweet. I was very tempted to take a picture of Patrick's locker (That while everyone's locker is labeled with just their first name, Patrick's says "Patrick Dempsey) but I didn't.
-While I hanging out on the back of the rig JOE'S WIFE and 2 daughters came up. It was slightly embarrassing because I was in my Joe gear. But his wife is really nice and his daughters are adorable.
-Joe came up and gave his daughter (and me) a lesson in meteorology (it looked like it was going to rain and he explained, in scientific terms, why it was going to miss us). I asked him how the hell he knew all that and he said it was cuz he was a geek. He also has like 2 different degrees.
-Ron was going to the rig to get changed into his fire suit, or as he said "TIME TO GET NAKED!!". When he came out a couple min later, when I was walking RIGHT in front of the door, I was like "I'm glad you didn't open that any sooner." And he told me "It's ok, my boxers are not very special today." It was HILARIOUS.
-Once it was getting closer to the race, I let the team get ready and hiked over to where I was going to watch the race. I plopped myself down in the HEAT and got all settled in.
Here are the cars/teams getting in starting position.
-Start of the Race.
-Lets just say the race was frustrating and sad. Charles and Joe both almost died (hose kept coming lose and carbon monoxide was leaking). There was dirty/foul play. Charles spun out RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME again. And well we didn't finish the race (with 5mins left). The car also got pretty beat up.
-So yeah the team wasn't to happy after that. They were just loading up the gear. While they were doing this I ended up entertaining Joe's youngest daughter, WHO IS SO ADORABLE. She is also much better at Hi-5s than her dad.
-Finally after Joe got back and I could tell he was REALLY REALLY not in the mood I just said bye to who was around (didn't see Jim, he was busy with a bunch of crap that went down) and headed out.
It sucks that the race didn't end well, but I still had a blast with the team. They are all amazing and make you feel welcome. I prob forgot a ton of stuff that happened cuz there is always something entertaining going on with the Dempsey Racing team.
No idea when I will see them next, as it seems the race I was planning on making it to next season might not happen. I would love to try to make it out to Miller again but it's going to be about a 10 hour drive from LA and well hopefully I will be working so, less free time. But I shall try to make it to another race, and well I have a few of the crew members on my facebook so I will keep in touch.
Here are some more of my pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=34729&id=1133040046&l=e3239aac94