NASCAR FANS ARE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been a NASCAR fan for about five years. I got into it when I lived in Virginia, but only saw local races and never made it to Winston Cup. Boy, did I miss a lot. It figures that just when I got totally into it, I moved to Hawai`i. I haven't missed a race on TV in over two years. I figured I was screwed until I heard about the new Penske track in Fontana last year. After watching that race, I resolved to save my pennies and go this year. I saved and scrimped and managed to save about 100,000 pennies and was rewarded by my family giving me plane tickets and race tickets for X-mas. Here's my story of the best 5 days of this decade. I got up at 5am wed April 29th to get to the airport. My cousin met me at LAX, but he only planned on going to the Winston Cup race on Sun May 3rd. I hadn't been sure of where I was going to stay, but decided to camp on the infield, so he dropped me off at the track on Thurs when I knew the infield opened up. Only problem was that after he dropped me, I found out that only RVs were allowed to enter the track Thurs evening and that since I had no vehicle, I would not be allowed in until Fri am. Luckily, just then someone came to the same turn4 tunnel I was at wondering where the Motorhomes were lining up. He agreed to drive me over to the gate on the backstretch. I approached the first RV I saw with a bunch of crazy looking folk sitting outside swilling beer. I explained my situation and received the response: "Hell. it ain't no problem, you can ride in with us." I hadn't realized that this was the first RV in line and that Dave (the driver) had been waiting since 6am wed morning. After a couple of hours partying and finding one of the party to be a DEADHead (Ray), the gates opened up at 6pm Thurs. I was on my way to my best weekend of the 1990s. Dave's wife, Jamie, told me that I would be taking all my meals with them as Ray and I set up our tents across the street from the RV so that we would have a "Camp 2" for late night revelry. I insisted that I give her $$ for the food which she accepted only after making me promise to help the crew drink the 20 cases of beer they had stockpiled in the motorhome. Ray and I built a nice duplex for our tents and conversed about life where we agreed that the best way to live was to try to give more than you get and how such philosphy almost always backfired; AND It Was Good! Our first meal was a delicious Lasagna. Ray had been friends with these folks for years and we really began to enjoy ourselves as most of the eventual 30,000 people arrived in the infield. A guy came by a offered us some really nice Tee shirts for $15, $10 if we bought 5. They weren't "official, but they were nice, so I had my first NASCAR Tee shirt. It had Mark Martin's #6 car on the back; little did I know the signifigance. We crashed out around 2am. Friday morning I awoke at 6am as "quiet time" ended and generators fired up everywhere. The portable showeres at the track are wonderful. After a hearty breakfast, I headed off to the pits (I had a 3 day pass). I got there as they started rolling the cars out for qualifying. Most of the drivers avoided the crowd, but Ernie Irvin made a point of doing autographs for the whole line of fans. He signed my pit pass. Mark Martin also came along the row of fans signing everything. I quickly realized that I had on my new Teeshirt with the #6 car on back and he signed my sleeve. My favorite drive, Dale Earnhardt looked in serious pain as he came out to the cheers getting ready to qualify. I realized just what a scene it would be if he signed any autographs so I respected the man for even being there. He qualified awful and took the champions provisional, but his new driver, O'l DW did well which would prove to be a great part of the race. Friday evening we were treated by a concert by Eddie Money for about 5,000 fans and we all had a great evening. Talk about a "Ticket to Paradise". I had learned from the previous night that it was good to pass out early 'cause we would get woken up early. I crashed at 9pm. Saturday morning I checked out the pits but was more interested in meeting folks for the rasn reunion. I met Tom Duwe and Mert outside the fence at turn one (the worst place for someone camping in the infield.) Four people was a dissappointment, but I signed the banner. I went shopping in the trailer area and went to the grandstands for the Winston West race. It was not that exciting, but I enjoyed it as Ken Schraeder actualy had to race for the win. The IROC race followed and Mark Martin really showed himself as the best driver. The NASCAR boys did some unbelievable drafting and made some moves that I am sure caused them open wheel boys to shit their pants. Some of the moves seemed designed to do just that. It looked like whenever an open wheeler tried to show some balls he either wrecked or fell back. I would have loved to hear the scanner comments. Speaking of which I missed out; there were scanners for sale for $99 as an earlybird special Fri morning which would have been quite a deal compared to $35 for the weekend rentals. Check out the early deals at your next race. {If you can get a scanner for $99, I hearby pledge to buy it from you plus postage}. After the IROC race the NASCAR in Hollywood thing was over before I got back to the infield, but I hear I didn't miss much. Saturday night was magic. I met this beautiful woman..... Sunday morning: I awoke with a feeling of adventure. I checked out the pits and tried to meet my cousin, but he didn't show and as result, I missed the Sunday rasn reunion. I went to the grandstands with 12 beers, binoculars, camera, radio, headphones, hat, and sunglasses. I might add that I was pissed that there was no MRN broadcasdt during Saturday's race. I'll also say that the announcers sure did exaggerate the closeness of the racing on Sunday. I have to say that the grandstand seating was less than desireable for a few reasons. First, they really packed us in. As I arrived at my seat, I announced loudly that I was pleased there was only a couple of Jeff Gordon fans, but somebody almost got a punch in the head for confusing my Grateful Dead Tie Dye as being a Gordon shirt. The next short lived problem came from me lighting up a Free Winston cigarette. I directed the protestors to look at the signs of who was sponsoring the race and how if they gave me any shit for smoking outside that I would put my cigarette out on their eyeball. Surrounded by my fellow Earnhardt fans, we watchyed as the race began. The roar of 43 750 horsepower cars as the green flag flew was as close to a religeous experience as I've had since the last time I saw Jerry Garcia. When the Red flag flew i after Bill elliott went up in flames, I went for a bite to eat and saw how pitifully lacking Penske's restrooms were for the grandstand crowd. As a result, I limited myself to 7 beers. The race was great. Earnhardt kept moving up despite a spin during the Kyle Petty/Elliott wreck. DW was doing surprisingly well. Ray Evernham made a major mistake by calling JG into the pits during the last caution. He restarted 13th and DE had a lot of fun holding him back ;-) MARK Martin won easily and after the race I cound my cousin. I convinced him that it made ore sense to drink beer and hangout overnight than to deal with traffic. He is a NASCAR convert now and we're planning a motorhome weekend next year. PS Anybody want a CART ticket for Nov. 1st?? Aloha, Henry 8 in '98 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
~Reply to:, <tinylightsAThotmailDOTcom><hkelleyAThawaiiDOTedu>~ *GO #3,1,31,90,6,88,94,17,10,44,99 GRATEFUL DEADHEAD 4 Life * ~ "You Can't Erase Blood."-Millennium, "Trust No1"-X-Files ~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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