Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Nascar Darlington Southern 500

On Saturday May 9, Rob and I went to the Nascar race in Darlington. He woke me up at 7 because he was so excited for the race. I tried to get him to let me sleep longer because I knew we had a long day ahead of us, but he had been awake since 5:30 and couldn't wait for me any longer. We met his friends at the track at 10, where Rob helped them set up camp. Once they were done we walked around and bought some stuff, including two Dale Jr. onesies for the baby. Whether it is a boy or a girl, it is destined to be a Dale Jr. fan (even though I am a Kasey Kahne fan myself). We rested after walking around for a few hours. Rob was ready for the race. He was ready to go to our seats at 5 even though the race didn't start until 7:30. We walked around a little more with some other of Rob's friends and finally made it to our seats. The intros began and of course Rob had to get a picture of Dale coming in. Yes it is actually him in the yellow car. Rob took a couple of pictures of the wrong person before he got it right.
We were both excited for the race to begin and Rob as usual had to stick his tongue out in the picture we have of us. Our seats were right in front of the pits, too bad it was Jimmy Johnson and not Earnhardt Jr. or Kasey Kahne's pit in front of us. Although Earnhardt's was a little further back, it was still close enough for us to see it. We did get to see a record number of cautions for the Darlington track. 17 of them actually, which extended the length of the race and I was exhausted by the time it ended. I could have slept through the last 50 laps if I could have gotten comfortable enough. I was glad I didn't though, because Mark Martin rolled into victory lane. He isn't my favorite driver but I don't mind cheering for him. I like to see him win just because he is one of the oldest drivers in Nascar. Kasey Kahne led for a while, but after about 150 laps (or less), he had car trouble and ended up finishing around 23rd, better than Dale Jr. He was only in the top 10 for a few minutes. Rob was excited just to see 88 on the board. We had a lot of fun at the race and we can't wait to go back next year. Maybe we'll make it to one of the other races. Rob is dying to go to Bristol, Richmond, or Talledega.
This is a nice picture of turn 4 with the return of the classic red and white stripes at Darlington.