This weekend turned out to be much different than I expected. Friday Jeff & I went by the house (as usual) and then grabbed a late dinner from Taco Bell. From the drive-thru we could hear the cars at the track for the Busch Race. Jeff teased me by saying "what if we had tickets waiting at the Will Call office for the Winston race?" How rude! When we got home we watched the race for a little while, then I got restless and decided to keep packing.

I've made some good progress lately; we'll be ready to go when October gets here. In case any of you haven't heard, we're set to close September 30th. I still can't believe they're going to be finished by then. Jeff, Eric, Mike & I got the Cat 5 run Wednesday night, and the next day they started on the drywall. Sidewalks and front step are in. It's crazy how fast they can do this.

Ok, back to last Friday. After the race was over, Jeff came in to help (ie: watch) me pack. Earlier when he had mentioned the tickets at Will Call I blew it off. But he mentions it again, and this time he's not joking. Turns out he had gotten free tickets through work, thanks to Alltel. And he'd had them for a WEEK and a HALF! Grr. And if that wasn't bad enough, ALL OF YOU KNEW!

I hate that.

So anywayz.

When Mike called around 12:30 to let us know they were back from the John Mayer concert we hopped in the car and drove down to spend some time with everyone. The boys talked geek and I fell asleep on the floor. Hmm..have we done this before? Nah.... 3, 3:30, someone finally decided it was time for bed, so we hopped back in the car and went home.

Saturday morning/early afternoon was spent searching the stores for those cushion thingies to sit on at the race. Nada. All sold out. If Jeff had told me about the race a week earlier...hmp. Oh well. Shortly after 3 we headed towards the track. By 4 we were trying to figure out where we needed to go. The tickets Jeff had gotten included food and stuff before the race in Alltel's hospitality suite. Neither one of us had a clue as to what that would be. Turns out that many of the major driver sponsors (did ya follow that?) offer packages you can buy. They include dinner and free stuff along with your ticket. All the sponsors have a section roped off in this big warehouse-like room. We finally found the Alltel "suite" about 4:45; signed in, got goodie bags, and were pointed towards the food table (the dinner buffet was about to start). We were then informed that they were doing garage and pit tours!!

One drawback..to go in the garage, you had to wear pants (safety reasons). Jeff had shorts on. Doh!

Since there were several people on our group that had shorts they decided to do a separate tour of just the pits. It was so cool to be out on the track, and down in the pit stalls. The teams had all the tires laid out, the equipment set up and ready to go. Many of the cars were out already, while we saw others being pushed into place. Never got to see any drivers, but it was still awesome. TNT news was setting up for the broadcast, so we saw Bill Weber and Dave Burns practicing for the broadcast.

Driver introductions started at 7, so we headed to our seats around 6:15. I had no idea how crazy it was going to be trying to get into the track. The hospitality suites and vendor areas are located outside the track, so it's not until you actually try to get to your seats that the crowds of people show up. Luckily we started on the outside edge and pushed our way forward.

Our seats ended up being in turn 2. Too far around the curve to see the pit stalls, but we still had a good view of the track. For those of you who like racing, but have never actually been to a race, you have to go. At least once. Jeff and I went to Charlotte last year, but a short track is much much different. There was never a break in the noise. And it was almost terrifying to watch the cars going around the corners; I don't know how they made it.

Matt Kenseth (17 Dewalt) won. Ryan Newman (12 Alltel) led a lot of the race, but Kenseth was faster in the end. We got out of there around 11:40, and by 12:20 were on the road home. Instead of waiting for the shuttle to take us back up to the parking areas, we hoofed it down the road. Maybe I should say flew. Certainly felt like it. And that was no one block walk either!

But anywayz, I guess I've rambled enough about the race.

Sunday Jeff got up early (earlier than me) and took my car to Firestone for some new tires. I was still driving around on the original ones that came on the car. (It's a 98-hmm, yeh, time for some new ones!) Before he finished there, Brian called and said there were going to come up to Waffle House for bre-oh, um, lunch. After some tasty Waffle House hashbrowns we parted ways. Chris had to get back to play some disc golf with a friend. Everyone else met us at the house later to see the progress. While Jeff and the boys spent the afternoon quaking I washed some clothes and made some phone calls. Dinner at The Mexico Restaurant topped off the day. Mmm..chips and salsa..