Ok gang!  It's a boring Friday afternoon with almost no traffic on this list, so I decided to break down and post the first of my UCAPs from the last two races so people have something to peruse.  Hope no one thinks this is too old of news!  BTW, the thing I hate about these west coast races is that I've been waiting all day to see practice speeds and finally just saw that they weren't even starting to practice old there until 12:30 eastern.  :-(  Here's the first installment of the Martinsville saga:

If it's cold and rainy, it must be Martinsville.

Friday or the Evil Land Baron Don't Like Yankees!

Lou and I got a very early start (5 a.m.) to beat the Washington, DC traffic.  After the previous night's tornados in Nashville and the dismal weather predicted for the weekend, we questioned our sanity in heading to southern Virginia, but knew if there was chance of them getting the race in, we wanted to be there.  Lou did suggest taking our Talladega tickets with us just in case the race was delayed two days and we had to head out to Dega from Martinsville, so we grabbed em. :-)
After that, I started thinking it might be cool to not have to go back home and just take a leisurely drive from M-ville to Dega, without having to rush back north for two days of work in between. Although, a few raindrops started falling as we left home and we had heavy rain before Richmond, after that the skys cleared up and became sunny.  We made it to Martinsville in record time (by 11 a.m.)!

Md Rasner, David Gregg, and his family had been there since Thursday. They were anxious to try out their new travel-trailer, so they volunteered to go early and try and save camping spots for us, the Dubs, and Bruce & Darnelle Brown.  Unfortunately, the evil land baron (redneck curator of the campground across from the track) refused to let David save more than one spot and that one spot was a huge mud puddle after Thursday night's rainstorms.  So Lou (who is the least likely person to alienate anyone), gets out of the truck to talk it over with the Evil Land Baron (ELB) and try and get spots for the Dubs and the Browns.  I just hang back with David's wife, Shari, knowing that I'd cause trouble if I open my mouth. ;-) A couple of minutes later, Lou comes back and says the ELB just said "If you give me any lip, I'll put your ass right out in the street!" :-0 We end up saying "yes sir" and parking where the ELB tells us, which is down one space and over one row from David. :-( Great!  Guess the he just doesn't like Yankees, but at least he kinda remembered Lou from the last two times we camped there, so he did allow his to mark off spaces for our two friends. Later Lou made an unscientific measurement (you know that man-thing of pacing it off) and found that some camping spots were 7 paces, some 8 paces and some 9 paces!  Guess the ELB just can't count properly when he gets around Yankees.  Lou made a call to KDub on the Batphone and warned her to tell Bruce that the ELB has a bad attitude and be prepared when he arrives.

We set up our campsite and settle in to have our first beers about 11:30.  AHHHH. . . the weather is somewhat warm and looks promising at this time.

We went up to the track just before 3:00, to check out souvenirs and catch qualifying.  We frantically look for a Jeremy Mayfield souvenir trailer and can't find one.  Hmmm. . . that's weird!  The skys start looking threatening just before we buy our tickets for quals and Lou hesitates.  David Gregg and I convince him that we have to spend the $10 each and it will be ok.

Quals start off, but it starts drizzling after the first 10 or so cars. They keep going until Johnny Benson's run and he slips and records a horrible time.  Then they finally throw the red flag.  It rained for about 10-15 minutes, all of which Jack Roush and JB argue futilely with the officials about how their run was screwed up.  Qualifying eventually resumes and we are amazed and astounded by Bobby Hamilton winning the pole since you haven't heard much out of that #4 team all year (until now).  They were running a Allison Legacy race afterward, but we opted to go back to the campground and see if any of the NC contingent has arrived yet. We find that the ELB had put Bruce and a friend of his across the aisle and down two spots from us, rather than the spots we were saving! :-( Then Kathy and Greg arrive in a few minutes and they end up on the other side of Bruce.  What a mess!  We spent the whole weekend trudging back and forth between campers through the mud.  Lou and David got smart and at least put down boards between our campers, so we didn't have to walk through the mud hole.

After dinner, everyone starts making the rounds between campers.  Most of the weekend we congregated in front of Bruce's camper, since it was the most centrally located.  Howard, who we remember from other trips, arrives and does not disappoint us with his usual bad jokes. After a while, Greg comes over to our trailer to say Howdy to us.  Lou insists he try his [newly discovered] Sapphire Gin.  Greg accepts the drink, saying "this should go well after the beer and Wild Turkey I've been shooting."  After a while, Bruce shows up and we all ask him where his glasses are.  He sheepishly admits he broke them when he ran into Greg and Kathy's awning a few minutes before.  (Awnings are a real hazzard in any campground during race weekends; just ask Lou) ;-) Luckily Bruce has brought a bottle of moonshine along to kill the pain. In the age-old tradition of men, Lou and Greg have a couple of swigs with him to share the painkilling experience with him. ;-) When Bruce tries to coerce me into trying it, I decide it's time to bring out the "lady's" drink and make Kdub and I a couple of Buttery Nipple shooters. I wander over to the Dub camper with them and see that it is dark and the door is closed.  I go back and tell the guys that Kdub must have gone to bed.  Bruce and Greg vehemently tell me that she's probably up, to go back and knock on the door.  I figured they were just trying to get rid or me or set me up to wake up Kdub and refuse to budge.

Eventually, they decide to prove me wrong and we all go trailing behind Greg to their camper.  We find Kdub just about asleep on the couch. Great guys!  Now we've ALL disturbed her!  But Kdub valiantly woke up and had her Butter Nipple!  ;-) See!  Men aren't the only ones who can uphold a drinking tradition! :-)  After that, the conversation quickly disintegrates into plain silliness.  Bruce starts talking about a "head fumpuss" and the rest of us go "HUH????"  Bruce repeats it and then explains that he's heard that term his whole life.  We insist he spell it and use it in a sentence.  He explains it as when you fall headlong into something.  His sentence is "Like I head fumpussed into the awning and broke my damn glasses and cut my nose!"  We realize then that he indeed does have a new wound on the bridge of his nose. :-0 We weren't too observant, I guess.  We also realize that Bruce has now changed "head fumpuss" from a noun to a verb! ;-)  The conversation just gets sillier from that point, with Kdub adjourning to the bed and occasionally joining in the conversation from there.

After a while, Lou and I feel like it must be at least 2 a.m. (since we'd been up since 4 a.m.), only to discover it is only 11:45.  We decide our bodies have had enough and crawl off to bed. Lou wanted to rest up for his debut as a SHR pit crew member the next night at Orange County.  Forgot to mention that!  A couple of week's before, Greg and Kathy realized that they had a race at Orange County the Saturday night of the Martinsville weekend.  So Lou offered to let Greg use his truck to drive back to Roxboro.  Greg suggested that Lou go with him and work on the pit crew that night.  Lou was excited about his debut and was practicing his airgun noises in his sleep.  No!  I guess that WAS snoring (or a badly tuned airgun)!  ;-)

Part 2

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