My First NASCAR Experience….
Bristol Motor Speedway has been voted favorite track by the fans for years. It’s fast, there’s usually at least one “big one”, and Bristol always seems to make the drivers work (drive) harder (better) than the other tracks. We were lucky enough to be able to come up and go to both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series races at Bristol.
Bristol is a special place for me because it’s my hometown track. I was born and raised about an hour from the track in Southwest Virginia. Which was also good because we stay with my parents, no hotels for us. So it was definitely #1 on my list for it to be the first race I ever attend. I’ve been a NASCAR fan for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember not watching it if that tells you anything! Usually Bristol tickets are the hardest to get, the tickets sell out quickly. I’ve always heard they sell out years in advance but that’s not true at all. Usually being from the area, if you aren’t attending the race you don’t go near the track due to the traffic and sheer amount of people. The August races are the best (in my opinion) because they take place under the lights. The race starts at twilight and goes on into the night making it much more dramatic.
Like I said we attended both the Nationwide and the Sprint Cup races. Friday was the Nationwide series race, which in all honestly bored me to death! We didn’t have a scanner or anything so we really didn’t know what was going on. We just kinda watched the cars go around and enjoyed ourselves. Then on to Saturday the big race! We arrived at the track fairly early we didn’t want to have to park ten miles away and have to walk. We found our seats on the front stretch a mere 2 sections to the left of the start finish line! YES!!! Unfortunately our seats were directly in the sun, it’s a great night race when the sun goes down but it’s still up if you get there super early like we did. We were really pumped up we had a scanner for this one so we were going to be in the know this time around. We walked down to the fence at the track and took some pictures. Boy was it hot and I needed a nap something fierce. Thanks to the traffic and hour drive home we didn’t get back to my parents house until like 1am the night before. So with winding down and everything bedtime hit at about 3amish. Closer the time drew to the green flag the more my head hurt and by the time the race was starting I had a full blown migraine. I don’t get migraines but of course on the day I had been soooo excited about I get one to the point where I can’t even open my eyes. The noise of the cars alone is enough to give someone a headache even with earplugs. So my big day that I’d looked forward to for so very long had been ruined and I missed pretty much ALL the race. Needless to say I was so disappointed! 
I missed my driver winning and spinning out the guy I very much dislike. Hopefully there will be a next time where I can actually enjoy the race. And when that next time comes we are staying closer to the track so we can get more rest! Here’s some more pictures from the weekend. Enjoy!
It was a beautiful day for racing!
Start of the Food City 250
Kasey Kahne’s Crew Reading his car for the Sharpie 500
Flag Stand
Some fans rather promote who they don’t like..
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Everyday Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Erica September 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
I absolutely LOVE Bristol. You need to check out a drag race there! Its even cooler!