My Vacation
Jason's Charlotte Diary:
Tuesday, October 11th.
I worked my last shift at work, nothing noteworthy, same old same old. Went home and did laundry so I could pack for the trip. I got home at about 11:45, and was doing laundry until about 1:30. I was waaaaaaaaay to excited to sleep, and I also feared that if I went to bed, I'd oversleep and miss my flight. So I stayed up all night, and left for the airport around 4:30 am.
Wednesday, October 12th
My flight was leaving at 6:20am, and I was there with plenty of time to spare. So I got on the plane, and was in the air for about an hour before landing in memphis. I had an hour and 40 minute layover in Memphis, and thats where my tiredness began to catch up with me. I was able to stay awake until boarding the plane for Charlotte, and fell asleep as soon as I hit the seat. Before I knew it, I was in Charlotte and I was excited because there was so much I wanted to do as soon as I touched down in Charlotte at about 12:30pm and I called my friend Leslie to see if she was at the airport, and she wasn't, which was disappointment #1. I had a full agenda for Wednesday afternoon, and it was all on a timetable, and I wanted to get going with my plans. Leslie showed up around 1, and instead of going with my plans, she decided that it'd be better to drive through Charlotte, and leave the fun stuff for another day. I guess it was ok, it gave me time to go back to her house and take about a 2 hour nap. Woke up around 4-5pm and was excited to see hockey on TV!!! It's been so long that i've watched a hockey game, especially now that it's not on ESPN. So I savored some hockey, and called it a night around 9pm.
Thursday, October 13th
Quite possibly one of the funnest days of my life. We left the house around 10am, heading for the speedway, and a couple of the race shops. Of course Leslie decided to take a detour and drive through downtown Charlotte, although we got to see the stadium that the Carolina Panthers play in, so that was kind of cool, but just a distraction before I got to see what I really wanted to see. We went to Roush Racing first, since that was home of my favorite driver Matt Kenseth. It was very cool to see the shops where the cars are built, and to see the crews working on cars for next year already. Out back of the shop, we saw some members of a different team working on pit stop practice, and that was kind of fun to see. Then we headed back to the Museum. Alot of racing history, 4-5 cars from actual races, and countless trophies. They had a large gift shop, with some amazing deals. I bought two 1/24th scale cars for $5 each. I saw these same cars later in the weekend on sale for $25. Guess I did pretty good with that deal. I also bought some smaller items, including 2 lugnuts from actual races :) and took LOADS of pictures. One of the coolest things was 2 2006 Mustangs that were built especially for the owner of the race teams Jack Roush. I took lots of pics of them for my dad, since he loves mustangs. After that, we decided to go over towards the speedway. It was only Thursday afternoon and the place was buzzing. I was amazed to see that each driver in the race had an entire semi full of merchandise available for purchase. Alot of them also had show cars, which were really cool to get up close and personal with. Then we went to Hendrick Motorsports. I really didn't want to go here, since i HATE the drivers from here, but there was ONE thing that I wanted to see, and that was a car from the Days of Thunder movie. They had about 9-10 cars in their show room, including one that had been in an accident and rolled over like 10 times, not much left of that. The Days of Thunder car was cool to see, and of course I took more pictures. Then it was on to stop #3. We had to drive about 15 miles north to get to Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. One of the main reasons I wanted to go here was because my dad was a HUGE fan of Dale Earnhardt before he died a couple years ago. This was the only shop we had to pay any kind of admission to. It was nice to see alot of history from the Dale Earnhardt championship years. No way to view the actual shops, but they had 4 cars up front to look at. After we left DEI, we had one more stop to make. After Dale Earnhardt passed away, the city of Kannapolis, which is where he lived, built a 9 foot statue in a nice park downtown. We kinda had to drive around and around to find it, but we made it. I was never a big fan of Dale Earnhardt, but I know my dad was a HUGE fan, so it was kind of touching to call my dad from the statue. It's something I wish he could see, but I dont know if he'll ever be able to make it down there, so of course, i took mooooore pictures. After that we headed back to the house, and got there about 7pm. It was a full day, 9 hours of driving and touring. I settled down with some more hockey, and went to bed early again.
Friday, October 14th (Race Day #1)
I finally slept in, until about 10am. I was real excited because I was going to see the first race Friday night, and I couldn't wait. I ended up going to the races with David (my friend leslie's roomie/life partner) we left for the track around 1, and didn't have to deal with too much traffic. I didn't know any of the track secrets, so we ended up paying $20 for parking. It wasn't a bad deal as we were only a short walk from the race track....but we had to walk AROUND the entire 1.5 mile track to get to our seats. We got to see some Nascar practices, and qualifying for the busch race. We got to our seats around 2:30, and the race didn't start until 8, so it was alot of sitting around. There were a couple of good things to getting there early though. There was enough stuff going on down on the track to keep me occupied, plus dealing with the traffic would have REALLY sucked. My favorite driver started the race and was looking pretty good, but had some tire problems (as did most drivers) and wasn't able to finish the last 20 laps, and he finished in 26th place. Totally not what I was hoping for, but it was the smaller of the two races, so I hoped i'd have better luck on Saturday night. One of the neat things I did, was to rent a scanner, so I could listen to the drivers talk to the crew people, and the spotters, and it was just really cool to get a behind the scenes kind of look at the race. It was also cool to be there Friday, just to see some of the practices, and to see a race, even if my fav driver didn't win. Suprisingly, we got right out of the parking spot, and made it home in about 35 minutes. Not bad at all. We got home around midnight, and of course, I went right to bed.
Saturday, October 15th (Race Day #2)
Left the house around noon, and this time ran into alot more traffic on the way to the track. This was to be expected as it was the bigger of the two races. We ended up finding some free parking, on the right side of the speedway, and made our way to the seats, to do some more hanging out at the track. They had 2 pre-race stunts that were pretty lame, and there was a pre race concert by Montgomery Gentry, that was pretty boring too. We were kind of far from the main happenings, as we were right at the exit of turn 4, and most of the main stuff happened near the middle of the track. The seats we had friday night were awesome, about 100 yards from the start finish line. Saturday night we were more down towards the turn 4 corner, right at the entrance of pit lane. I had no idea there was going to be a flyover during the national anthem, but man, that was freaking loud. Once again, Matt had some problems, but then again, so did everyone. According to some, the racetrack was just too fast, and people were blowing tires left and right. Matt ended up finishing 25th, and the driver I hate the most won. He cheated though, but they will never call it against the Lowe's driver at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The race was just cool to be there, and to be a part of it. Even though Matt didnt do nearly as good as I wanted him to. The whole night was kind of a sham. Of course I took bunches of pictures, in fact, overall, I took THIRTEEN rolls of film. Traffic was a nightmare getting out Saturday night. We were stuck in one spot for over an hour. We finally got home, but didn't make it home til just after 3am. No hockey tonight, straight to bed.
Sunday, October 16th
Sunday was quite possibly one of the best days of my life. Despite the fact that I could barely walk from walking so much the previous days, I somehow mustered up enough strength to make my way to the track again, this time, going right to pit lane. I was going to take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and I was going to go on a 3 lap ridealong in a nascar race car. I wasn't getting my hopes completly up, because I knew there was a chance I just might not fit safely in the car. I guess the RPDE is really hard up for money because they did EVERYTHING in their power to get my fat ass in a uniform and into the car. Supposedly the race suit they gave me was a 3X, but I'm pretty sure it was a large. The coat didn't go any further south than my belly button, and the pants....damn, the pants...i squeezed as much as I could, and I could barely get the fly zipped up. it was pretty embarassing. Once I got my fat ass into the suit, the next thing was the restraints. I had to get into a 5 part harness, and they almost had to piece 2 harnesses together for me. I've come to the conclusion that my body is just configured weirdly. There were guys that were definitely bigger than me, that had no problem getting into the suit. I can't figure it out. So they finally got me into a suit. I looked like the god damn state puff marshmallow man, but I was in the suit. The next task came with getting me in the car. Did I mention i was too big for the suit? Yeah, then they expected me to be able to lift my feet 4 feet up to climb in the window of the car. Somehow, with the help of 2 people, I got my leg inside the car, and then I had to weasel my way into the car. yeah, it wasn't comfortable at all, but somehow they made it work. So, I get in the car, and I'm officially excited as all can be. I had made a point of not getting my hopes up, because I didn't know how determined they were goin to be to get me in the car. So, i'm in the car. We take off down the pit lane, 0 to 60 in about 5 seconds, fucking incredible. Going down the main straightaway, I was thinking, this isn't too bad, just a real fast car, then we got to the corner. When we got into the corner, thats when the G forces started taking over, and it was amazing. Long Straight stretch, corner, corner, straight, corner, corner, straight, corner corner, straight, corner, corner, straight, corner, corner, straight....then back into the pits. Wow, what an experience. I will never, ever, forget how amazing that ride was. They let me take my helmet off before getting out, and I got out surely alot easier than I got in. All in all, the 3 laps probably lasted 2 minutes, but wow, just amazing. I got a real nice plaque, with my 5x7 picture in it, a nice RPDE logo and the lowes motor speedway logo. It was $35, but one of those things you cant' really pass up. Once I find a scanner, that picture will be scanned. Again, I look like a total friggin retard, but in all honesty, I haven't seen a smile on my face like that in the LONGEST time. After that, I soaked up some quality time in the pits at the speedway, before making my way back home. We had my favorite meal last night (roast and mashed potatos) and I just relaxed all night.
Monday, October 17th
Vacation over, time to get back to work. Got to the airport around noon for my 1pm flight. Thought i was in the right gate, then read something wrong, so I walked to the opposite end of the airport, only to find I was originally in the right spot, so I had to walk all the way back. Did I mentioned my feet KILLED me? yeah, it sucked. But my flight from Charlotte to memphis was nothing special, and now that ya mention it, neither was the flight from Memphis to Baton Rouge. Got back home and laid in bed all night, until I came to work at 11pm. Quite the crazy weekend, a weekend I'll never forget.
Tuesday, October 11th.
I worked my last shift at work, nothing noteworthy, same old same old. Went home and did laundry so I could pack for the trip. I got home at about 11:45, and was doing laundry until about 1:30. I was waaaaaaaaay to excited to sleep, and I also feared that if I went to bed, I'd oversleep and miss my flight. So I stayed up all night, and left for the airport around 4:30 am.
Wednesday, October 12th
My flight was leaving at 6:20am, and I was there with plenty of time to spare. So I got on the plane, and was in the air for about an hour before landing in memphis. I had an hour and 40 minute layover in Memphis, and thats where my tiredness began to catch up with me. I was able to stay awake until boarding the plane for Charlotte, and fell asleep as soon as I hit the seat. Before I knew it, I was in Charlotte and I was excited because there was so much I wanted to do as soon as I touched down in Charlotte at about 12:30pm and I called my friend Leslie to see if she was at the airport, and she wasn't, which was disappointment #1. I had a full agenda for Wednesday afternoon, and it was all on a timetable, and I wanted to get going with my plans. Leslie showed up around 1, and instead of going with my plans, she decided that it'd be better to drive through Charlotte, and leave the fun stuff for another day. I guess it was ok, it gave me time to go back to her house and take about a 2 hour nap. Woke up around 4-5pm and was excited to see hockey on TV!!! It's been so long that i've watched a hockey game, especially now that it's not on ESPN. So I savored some hockey, and called it a night around 9pm.
Thursday, October 13th
Quite possibly one of the funnest days of my life. We left the house around 10am, heading for the speedway, and a couple of the race shops. Of course Leslie decided to take a detour and drive through downtown Charlotte, although we got to see the stadium that the Carolina Panthers play in, so that was kind of cool, but just a distraction before I got to see what I really wanted to see. We went to Roush Racing first, since that was home of my favorite driver Matt Kenseth. It was very cool to see the shops where the cars are built, and to see the crews working on cars for next year already. Out back of the shop, we saw some members of a different team working on pit stop practice, and that was kind of fun to see. Then we headed back to the Museum. Alot of racing history, 4-5 cars from actual races, and countless trophies. They had a large gift shop, with some amazing deals. I bought two 1/24th scale cars for $5 each. I saw these same cars later in the weekend on sale for $25. Guess I did pretty good with that deal. I also bought some smaller items, including 2 lugnuts from actual races :) and took LOADS of pictures. One of the coolest things was 2 2006 Mustangs that were built especially for the owner of the race teams Jack Roush. I took lots of pics of them for my dad, since he loves mustangs. After that, we decided to go over towards the speedway. It was only Thursday afternoon and the place was buzzing. I was amazed to see that each driver in the race had an entire semi full of merchandise available for purchase. Alot of them also had show cars, which were really cool to get up close and personal with. Then we went to Hendrick Motorsports. I really didn't want to go here, since i HATE the drivers from here, but there was ONE thing that I wanted to see, and that was a car from the Days of Thunder movie. They had about 9-10 cars in their show room, including one that had been in an accident and rolled over like 10 times, not much left of that. The Days of Thunder car was cool to see, and of course I took more pictures. Then it was on to stop #3. We had to drive about 15 miles north to get to Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. One of the main reasons I wanted to go here was because my dad was a HUGE fan of Dale Earnhardt before he died a couple years ago. This was the only shop we had to pay any kind of admission to. It was nice to see alot of history from the Dale Earnhardt championship years. No way to view the actual shops, but they had 4 cars up front to look at. After we left DEI, we had one more stop to make. After Dale Earnhardt passed away, the city of Kannapolis, which is where he lived, built a 9 foot statue in a nice park downtown. We kinda had to drive around and around to find it, but we made it. I was never a big fan of Dale Earnhardt, but I know my dad was a HUGE fan, so it was kind of touching to call my dad from the statue. It's something I wish he could see, but I dont know if he'll ever be able to make it down there, so of course, i took mooooore pictures. After that we headed back to the house, and got there about 7pm. It was a full day, 9 hours of driving and touring. I settled down with some more hockey, and went to bed early again.
Friday, October 14th (Race Day #1)
I finally slept in, until about 10am. I was real excited because I was going to see the first race Friday night, and I couldn't wait. I ended up going to the races with David (my friend leslie's roomie/life partner) we left for the track around 1, and didn't have to deal with too much traffic. I didn't know any of the track secrets, so we ended up paying $20 for parking. It wasn't a bad deal as we were only a short walk from the race track....but we had to walk AROUND the entire 1.5 mile track to get to our seats. We got to see some Nascar practices, and qualifying for the busch race. We got to our seats around 2:30, and the race didn't start until 8, so it was alot of sitting around. There were a couple of good things to getting there early though. There was enough stuff going on down on the track to keep me occupied, plus dealing with the traffic would have REALLY sucked. My favorite driver started the race and was looking pretty good, but had some tire problems (as did most drivers) and wasn't able to finish the last 20 laps, and he finished in 26th place. Totally not what I was hoping for, but it was the smaller of the two races, so I hoped i'd have better luck on Saturday night. One of the neat things I did, was to rent a scanner, so I could listen to the drivers talk to the crew people, and the spotters, and it was just really cool to get a behind the scenes kind of look at the race. It was also cool to be there Friday, just to see some of the practices, and to see a race, even if my fav driver didn't win. Suprisingly, we got right out of the parking spot, and made it home in about 35 minutes. Not bad at all. We got home around midnight, and of course, I went right to bed.
Saturday, October 15th (Race Day #2)
Left the house around noon, and this time ran into alot more traffic on the way to the track. This was to be expected as it was the bigger of the two races. We ended up finding some free parking, on the right side of the speedway, and made our way to the seats, to do some more hanging out at the track. They had 2 pre-race stunts that were pretty lame, and there was a pre race concert by Montgomery Gentry, that was pretty boring too. We were kind of far from the main happenings, as we were right at the exit of turn 4, and most of the main stuff happened near the middle of the track. The seats we had friday night were awesome, about 100 yards from the start finish line. Saturday night we were more down towards the turn 4 corner, right at the entrance of pit lane. I had no idea there was going to be a flyover during the national anthem, but man, that was freaking loud. Once again, Matt had some problems, but then again, so did everyone. According to some, the racetrack was just too fast, and people were blowing tires left and right. Matt ended up finishing 25th, and the driver I hate the most won. He cheated though, but they will never call it against the Lowe's driver at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The race was just cool to be there, and to be a part of it. Even though Matt didnt do nearly as good as I wanted him to. The whole night was kind of a sham. Of course I took bunches of pictures, in fact, overall, I took THIRTEEN rolls of film. Traffic was a nightmare getting out Saturday night. We were stuck in one spot for over an hour. We finally got home, but didn't make it home til just after 3am. No hockey tonight, straight to bed.
Sunday, October 16th
Sunday was quite possibly one of the best days of my life. Despite the fact that I could barely walk from walking so much the previous days, I somehow mustered up enough strength to make my way to the track again, this time, going right to pit lane. I was going to take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and I was going to go on a 3 lap ridealong in a nascar race car. I wasn't getting my hopes completly up, because I knew there was a chance I just might not fit safely in the car. I guess the RPDE is really hard up for money because they did EVERYTHING in their power to get my fat ass in a uniform and into the car. Supposedly the race suit they gave me was a 3X, but I'm pretty sure it was a large. The coat didn't go any further south than my belly button, and the pants....damn, the pants...i squeezed as much as I could, and I could barely get the fly zipped up. it was pretty embarassing. Once I got my fat ass into the suit, the next thing was the restraints. I had to get into a 5 part harness, and they almost had to piece 2 harnesses together for me. I've come to the conclusion that my body is just configured weirdly. There were guys that were definitely bigger than me, that had no problem getting into the suit. I can't figure it out. So they finally got me into a suit. I looked like the god damn state puff marshmallow man, but I was in the suit. The next task came with getting me in the car. Did I mention i was too big for the suit? Yeah, then they expected me to be able to lift my feet 4 feet up to climb in the window of the car. Somehow, with the help of 2 people, I got my leg inside the car, and then I had to weasel my way into the car. yeah, it wasn't comfortable at all, but somehow they made it work. So, I get in the car, and I'm officially excited as all can be. I had made a point of not getting my hopes up, because I didn't know how determined they were goin to be to get me in the car. So, i'm in the car. We take off down the pit lane, 0 to 60 in about 5 seconds, fucking incredible. Going down the main straightaway, I was thinking, this isn't too bad, just a real fast car, then we got to the corner. When we got into the corner, thats when the G forces started taking over, and it was amazing. Long Straight stretch, corner, corner, straight, corner, corner, straight, corner corner, straight, corner, corner, straight, corner, corner, straight....then back into the pits. Wow, what an experience. I will never, ever, forget how amazing that ride was. They let me take my helmet off before getting out, and I got out surely alot easier than I got in. All in all, the 3 laps probably lasted 2 minutes, but wow, just amazing. I got a real nice plaque, with my 5x7 picture in it, a nice RPDE logo and the lowes motor speedway logo. It was $35, but one of those things you cant' really pass up. Once I find a scanner, that picture will be scanned. Again, I look like a total friggin retard, but in all honesty, I haven't seen a smile on my face like that in the LONGEST time. After that, I soaked up some quality time in the pits at the speedway, before making my way back home. We had my favorite meal last night (roast and mashed potatos) and I just relaxed all night.
Monday, October 17th
Vacation over, time to get back to work. Got to the airport around noon for my 1pm flight. Thought i was in the right gate, then read something wrong, so I walked to the opposite end of the airport, only to find I was originally in the right spot, so I had to walk all the way back. Did I mentioned my feet KILLED me? yeah, it sucked. But my flight from Charlotte to memphis was nothing special, and now that ya mention it, neither was the flight from Memphis to Baton Rouge. Got back home and laid in bed all night, until I came to work at 11pm. Quite the crazy weekend, a weekend I'll never forget.