Sunday, September 17, 2006
Bristol Bash
For the second year, we began our race weekend a bit early, on a Wednesday, all in anticipation of a great racing weekend. This time, however, Kitty got out on the road by 5 a.m. and the trek to Bristol, including the rounding up of one Dutch and Cowboy Dan, only took till 9 p.m., just in time for the start of the truck race. Nor did Kitty have to kill Cowboy Dan for piss poor driving instructions due to her drunken state. All went smooth, including some midnight golf cart riding...
Thursday is a non-race day, so we took the time to be helpful to the race fans in attendance at Bristol, to wit:
We did not charge Nationwide for our services and not surprising, we had at least two takers looking for directions. Which leads one to wonder...do the Nationwide helpers regularly have dogs and beers whilst they give you information? Me thinks not. Idiots. In the spirit of Kitty's devotion to the insurance industry, there was no bad information given out, though the temptation was definitely there.
So, despite the hot temperatures (way above Cowboy's thermostat tolerance), the Team drank through the day and ended up at this splendiferous event:
That would be the "Hauler Parade" which apparently begins many miles down the road and fans LINE THE HIGHWAY in order to see A BUNCH OF TRUCKS. Being a fan of Smokey and the Bandit and BJ and the Bear, I can see the lure of the parade. But the fact that sooooo many people take time out of their party/drinking night to line a street to hear trucks beep their horns...just scary. Though we are in the hills of Tennessee. Guess that explains it. After the parade and an interesting night of friend-making (or not so much), we bid adieu to Dutch in the morning. Waiting in the wings after a horrific work day was Lil Bit, a.k.a the Carni, who arrived just in time for the night Busch race. We had good seats, but not as good as this race fan:
Oh yeah, that would be the world's best mullet. And luckily for Kasey Kahne, she's a fan. Race was good, made even better by the "cherry game" which consisted of ingesting a liquor soaked cherry during every caution. Unfortunately for us (or fortunately if you're the fellas behind us), this was the Busch race, where they like to crash into each other, and the cherry supply was exhausted by the drunken Team. This in turn guided our way for the evening back at E, cohorting with our neighbors, affectionately known as the Cornhole guys (thanks to their plastic $100 commercial grade bean bag game). Mastering the game of Cornhole at 4 a.m. is not an easy task, or maybe it was, hard to say.
Luckily, our new found neighbors knew "people in the know" and we got tickets to the sold out Cup race. Here's some happy campers in almost the highest seat they could be in, sans cherries:
Per usual, good time had by all. And in typical Bristol fashion, another hurricane was brewing in the seas as Team E learned for the first time as they took off Sunday morning. Luckily, Ernesto was not a Katrina and everyone fared well. Thanks Bristol! It was fun...on to Dega!
Thursday is a non-race day, so we took the time to be helpful to the race fans in attendance at Bristol, to wit:
We did not charge Nationwide for our services and not surprising, we had at least two takers looking for directions. Which leads one to wonder...do the Nationwide helpers regularly have dogs and beers whilst they give you information? Me thinks not. Idiots. In the spirit of Kitty's devotion to the insurance industry, there was no bad information given out, though the temptation was definitely there.
So, despite the hot temperatures (way above Cowboy's thermostat tolerance), the Team drank through the day and ended up at this splendiferous event:
That would be the "Hauler Parade" which apparently begins many miles down the road and fans LINE THE HIGHWAY in order to see A BUNCH OF TRUCKS. Being a fan of Smokey and the Bandit and BJ and the Bear, I can see the lure of the parade. But the fact that sooooo many people take time out of their party/drinking night to line a street to hear trucks beep their horns...just scary. Though we are in the hills of Tennessee. Guess that explains it. After the parade and an interesting night of friend-making (or not so much), we bid adieu to Dutch in the morning. Waiting in the wings after a horrific work day was Lil Bit, a.k.a the Carni, who arrived just in time for the night Busch race. We had good seats, but not as good as this race fan:
Oh yeah, that would be the world's best mullet. And luckily for Kasey Kahne, she's a fan. Race was good, made even better by the "cherry game" which consisted of ingesting a liquor soaked cherry during every caution. Unfortunately for us (or fortunately if you're the fellas behind us), this was the Busch race, where they like to crash into each other, and the cherry supply was exhausted by the drunken Team. This in turn guided our way for the evening back at E, cohorting with our neighbors, affectionately known as the Cornhole guys (thanks to their plastic $100 commercial grade bean bag game). Mastering the game of Cornhole at 4 a.m. is not an easy task, or maybe it was, hard to say.
Luckily, our new found neighbors knew "people in the know" and we got tickets to the sold out Cup race. Here's some happy campers in almost the highest seat they could be in, sans cherries:
Per usual, good time had by all. And in typical Bristol fashion, another hurricane was brewing in the seas as Team E learned for the first time as they took off Sunday morning. Luckily, Ernesto was not a Katrina and everyone fared well. Thanks Bristol! It was fun...on to Dega!
