What A Trip!! -- Michigan Int'l Speedway

You talk about an experience of a lifetime ... well, I just had one. It had its ups and downs, but overall, it was probably one of the highlights of my short life so far. Let's start from the beginning...

Thursday morning, I only had 3 hours of sleep. Woke up around 4:00 a.m., took a shower, made some coffee, and Katie was nice enough to get up and iron my ALLTEL Racing polo shirt, the shirt that I was planning to wear to Sunday's Nextel Cup race. Great thing that Katie was alert, otherwise I would have forgotten many things needed on my trip, like DEODORANT and extra pairs of boxer shorts. I finally left the Madison area at around 5:30 a.m. after getting some gas for the truck, then I was on my way to my first stop: Luverne, Minnesota to pick up a small television at my uncle's parent's house.

I made it to Spencer, Iowa probably around 7:30 a.m., where my uncle Al and two cousins, Brady and Casey, were still busy getting some stuff together. We didn't leave until 8:30 a.m. We drove through the big towns of Ames and Des Moines, turned east on I-80 and headed towards Iowa City/Coralville where we saw a huge accident. Brady, a CB buff, brought along a scanner and picked up many CB transmissions from different truck drivers driving along the interstate. Where I-380 meets up with I-80, there was a huge semi wreck in which a driver was killed -- the semi cab was completely ripped off the chassis of the rig itself (that was in the ditch) and the cab was laying in the middle of the east-bound lanes of I-80. When we drove past the wreckage, we didn't see any blood, but the word was out that this guy didn't make it. Another semi hit him somehow and he was pulled off the side of the interstate with moderate damage to his rig. We continued forth through Iowa City and headed for the World's Largest Truck Stop just west of Quad Cities.

We passed into Illinois with relative ease, then encountered the first miles of many of road construction on the interstate. It especially got worse when we approached the Chicago/Gary, Indiana area, where we only had one lane to drive in (by the way -- RUSH HOUR) and we were deadlocked for a while. I've never seen so many semi trucks in my life, and the whole time Brady had his CB on and all we heard was constant bitching and complaining about how they had to get their manifests to Detroit or Windsor, Ontario by a certain time. Also, they referred to regular cars and trucks as "four-wheelers," and semi truck drivers do not care too much for them.

The sun started to set as we passed through the wooded state of Michigan, where large coniferous trees lined the interstates in Michigan, reminiscent of northern Minnesota. We passed through large cities like Kalamazoo, Battle Creek (Cereal City), and Jackson. We finally pulled into Ann Arbor at around 9:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) and pulled into one of the largest grocery stores I have ever seen. This is a food chain called Meijers, and it looks like a Hy-Vee on steroids. It was just huge! After picking up some essentials (BEER), we drove back to the Comfort Inn, where we pimped out in style in a two room suite with a jacuzzi. We hit the sack early, all ready for a practice session back at Michigan International Speedway and qualifying on Friday.

On Friday, the weather wasn't very favorable. The skies were overcast and temps were cool, but we ventured the 40 miles to MIS (south of Jackson) and approached the speedway. Now, this was a sight that I have never seen, because I have never been to a NASCAR race before. But at the moment, MIS was my Mecca -- one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen, and this is only looking at the track from the OUTSIDE, looking at the impressive grandstands on the frontstrech and how they bend around Turns 3 & 4. My breath was literally taken away. I felt like a little kid again. With a passion like mine to watch cars run around in circles, this was simply stunning.

We stopped at a concession stand quickly to grab a couple of hot dogs, then we heard some engines start up and roar from inside the track. Brady, Casey, and myself entered the grandstand and stood as close as we could, probably 20 feet from the actual protective track wall. We saw Scott Riggs, driver of the #10 Vavoline Chevrolet, exit pit road and pull out onto the track. Brady had been here at MIS before, and he just looked at me and said, "Just wait until the car comes by." Riggs came through Turn 3 and came off Turn 4, close to where we were standing. Then, in a blur, he flew by with the most deafening noise and the fastest blazing speed I have ever experienced. The car's exhaust was so loud, that it left my ears ringing for some time. But the speed! It was amazing! The cars at MIS can approach 200 mph going into Turn 1, while they can maintain speeds at around 150-160 mph going through Turns 3 and 4. Then my boy, Ryan Newman, driver of the #12 ALLTEL/Justice League Dodge, took to the track. He was running a special paint scheme this weekend, sporting the members of the Justice League (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, etc.) with his car painted in a patriotic red, white, and blue. After a while from standing there and going deaf, we walked up the grandstand and put our scanners to work, listening in to the communciations from crew chief to driver. Ryan and his crew chief, Matt Borland, really didn't say a whole lot, but just by switching the different channels to the other drivers who could pick up on who was doing well, or who was struggling with their set-ups. Then, it started to rain.

The rain never did stop, as the rest of the practice sessions and qualifying for the Busch Series and Bud Pole was washed out. The rest of the time on Friday was spent walking down Merchandise Row, where large semi trailers were set out selling driver's offical merchandise like hats, shirts, key chains, banners, die casts, you name it. This stuff was not cheap either. Of course, more popular drivers had more trailers. Ryan Newman had two trailers, Dale Jr. had two trailers, and Jimmie Johnson had two trailers. Most of them had only one. Then, across the road from the track was the retailers who sold older but cheaper merchandise. This place was absolutely huge, there were probably more than 300 tents set up selling tons of stuff. The Texas Bikini Team was also there, but due to the cool weather, they really didn't pose much in their skimpies (WAY too much make-up), but on Saturday and Sunday they showed their goods! These girls were hotties -- check out their website at www.texasbikini.com.

On Saturday, it was going to be a beautiful day. Sunshine was going to be in the forecast with temps into the mid-70s. We got there at MIS early to watch a practice session, while Al and I went down to pit road with our pit passes to get a glimpse of the cars in action up-close. It kind of sucked -- there were so many people down there, especially around the areas where the cars enter and exit the garage area and I really couldn't get a photo of the cars. Besides that, I had a headache from hell. I wasn't sure if it was from the noise of the cars up close on Friday or what, but I really didn't feel all that well. After the practice was over, Al and I went back and grilled out before the Busch race. We met up with Brady and Casey and ate, then went back to the track and watched the Busch race, in which Kyle Busch, a rookie in the series, won his 5th race of the season. It was fun, but the stands were not even close to full capacity, more people were starting to arrive for the Cup race on Sunday as we walked out to the vehicle.

Sunday was the Day of Days and the traffic reflected it. Cars were piling into the parking lots around the track -- it probably took us a good couple of hours just to get settled in. MIS was like the Minnesota State Fair, the grand opening of the Mall of America all rolled into one. They were predicting 175,000 people to show up. Brady and Casey took the pit passes and left, while I went to the cheap side to do some merchadise shopping. Al stayed behind and set up camp. Sunday was going to be a little warmer than Saturday, so I was smart in slapping on some sunscreen (many applications) to prevent any sunburn and not experience what happened at The Asche Bash a month ago. After all that was done, we went back to the campsite and ate, talked some football smack with some guys from Wisconsin, and headed to the track where the race was going to start at around 3:00 p.m. We had a decent view in the tightly packed grandstands, sitting 37 rows up in the middle of Turns 3 and 4. Scanning the frequenices was fun, although I didn't really hear any bad language. There wasn't many accidents, just a couple of spin-outs, but other than that, Greg Biffle, driver of the #16 National Guard/"The Flash" Ford, won the race in dominating fashion. After the race, we just kind of sat around in the stands for an hour to wait for some people to clear out, went back to the camp and ate some more, waited there for a couple of hours, then headed out.

Our main objective was to get through Chicago on Sunday night to avoid any heavy traffic. But yet again, road construction slowed us down as we passed through the suburbs and there were again a few minor traffic incidents. The CB was picking up a lot of colorful language, like "Shit, I just spilled my piss bottle again, damn!" Some of that stuff you just had to laugh out loud. We made it to Joliet, a western suburb of Chicago at around 11:00 p.m. and crashed there for the night.

On Monday morning, we left Joliet at 10:30 a.m. in the morning and finally arrived back in Spencer at around 6:30 p.m. I stayed for about an hour, eating some supper and made the final drive back to Madison and got back home at 10:30 p.m. Katie was sure glad to see me as I did miss her much, gave her a Ryan Newman blanket plus a couple of keychains. It was good to be home again, but then again, I have to work on Tuesday. It was an experience of a lifetime, one that we are planning on doing again next year. Talks are in the air about heading to a different track like Bristol or Kansas, but Michigan will probably be the most likely again. And for the awards:

Thumbs Up Award: to Brady for remembering the CB. It was lots of fun listening to the banter between the truckers, swearing at each other and all that sorts of stuff. Also, honorable mention to the Texas Bikini Team, simply because they are hot!

Thumbs Down Award(s): to my headache on Saturday. Plus, I had visited Ryan's merchandise trailer on Friday saying that Ryan would be there on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. to sign autographs for anyone who had a ticket (175 of them were given out) or whoever was a Fan Club member. When I got there on Saturday, the line was 7-8 trailers long. At 1:30 p.m., Ryan still wasn't there, so I decided to jump out of line and walk up to the front of the trailer to see him and take a quick picture. All this time, the Busch race had started. At 1:45 p.m., Ryan still wasn't there, so I left, never seeing him in person. I had payed $50 for a Busch ticket and I wasn't going to waste that. Instead, I got a picture of Jeremy Mayfield, driver of the #19 Dodge Dealers Dodge, signing autographs in his trailer.