Let's go racin'! (Las Vegas)

Apparently, (or so I've been told) half of North Americans are die-hard Nascar racing fans. The other half are fans too. They just don't know it!

The Las Vegas Nascar Race is the second race that we've been to. We went to our first race last year at the California Speedway. I was a bit leery to say the least. Had a preconceived idea that everyone who goes to these things are total rednecks. I'm sure most of you can imagine or are thinking the same thing. But I was very surprised. Sure there are some definate "redneck race fans" there...but it wasn't over the top that way at all. Even more surprising....I had a total blast! It gets into your system and is so much fun!

Saturday morning we headed over to the racetrack for a few hours to check things out and do a bit of shopping. Yes shopping. And it's the guys who WANT to do this. For what? You know, racing gear. Gotta wear your favourite driver's gear on race day to show your support. Please note that I don't. I may enjoy going to the race and cheering nice and loud...but I draw the line at wearing race stuff. Gotta say though that Max looked darn cute in his little Junior hat and shirt on the day of the race! He's a BIG Junior fan.

So there are some things you need to know. All three of us (Keith, Max and I) ARE big-time Dale Earnhardt Junior fans. Junior drives the number 88 car. Last year he was driving for a different team and drove the number 8 car. What does that mean? It means we had to buy all new stuff for the guys this year (hats, shirts, etc.) all because his number and colours have changed from what we bought last year. (Is Junior raking in the cash from that, or what?! LOL!) The other thing you need to know is that we are NOT Jeff Gordon fans. My apologies to any of my readers who are. It's nothing personal. You will notice that I did post a picture of his car in the garage though - as a gesture of goodwill and all!

Sunday morning (the day of the race) we headed to the track early to avoid the inevitable traffic jams. Plus, we had "Neon Garage Pit Passes". These passes gave us entrance to the garages where all the race cars were being worked on. It's a pretty cool set-up. The garages are enclosed in glass and there is an upper level and a lower level so you can get a birds eye view of the pit crews working on the cars. I included a bunch of photo's and I apologize for the bad quality. All that glass was a reflecting nightmare so it was hard to get decent photo's. We also had a chance to check out Pit Road before the race and see the pits up close and a few of the cars being pushed out just before the start of the race.

The race itself was awesome! We were sitting in a section with a sea of Jimmie Johnson #48 fans. It appeared that they were at a Lowes Conference (Lowes is the major sponser of JJ). The funny thing was, whenever Tony Stewart (#20 - He drives for Home Depot) was introduced or mentioned they would majorly start booing. There's obviously some rivalry going on between Home Depot and Lowes! The fun thing for us at the race was that we were sitting all together in a group with the guests from the wedding of the previous night. Greg & Terri had organized tickets for any of the guests who wanted to go to the race so we were all able to sit in the same section.

Max was a little trooper... but about 3/4 or the way through the race, he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore and fell asleep. Can you believe he slept through that racket?! We can't figure out how he did it. He must have been exhausted. He woke up in time for the last 12 laps of the race. Junior was doing awesome and was in second place behind Carl Edwards. There were 4 laps left and he said to me "Mom! I'm going to pray for Junior that he wins!" And just like that, he bowed his little head and prayed out loud "Dear God. Please help Junior to win the race. AMEN!" He was cheering like crazy for him! The end result was Carl Edwards won and Junior came in second. It was a close race, very exciting and in the end we were all thrilled that he had done so well. On the way home, Max was sitting in the back of the car and he said to us "I was really proud of Junior today!" and he said it so quietly and seriously and so matter-of-factly. It was like he was a father talking about his son. It was so cute! I'm telling you....Max is Junior's Number 1 fan!!!!!

We were very fortunate that it only took us about a 3/4 hour to get back to our hotel. Friends of ours who were at the race were parked in a different lot then us. We got to our cars at the same time to leave. It took us 3/4 to get to the hotel. It took them over 3 hours. Ouch! Talk about the pain of being stuck in traffic!

So that was the Vegas Race. So much fun. And now we'll watch the rest of them this year on TV - cheering as wildly and loudly as possible! :-)