A Day in My Life.......: Our Weekend in Bristol Tennessee!

Kyle and I have been waiting since January to go to Bristol Tennessee for the NASCAR Race. Bristol is probably the best track to go to in the whole United States! We gave up our usual Michigan August tickets to go. Kyle's brother Nick and their Nephew Alex also went with us. We left around 9pm on Wednesday night. Kyle's sister Katy let us borrow her full size conversion van to pull our camper. Our truck has not liked pulling our camper (having over heating issues while pulling), and we knew that it would not make it through the mountains. Her van is super big and comfy. So we drove all night long and arrived at the campground around 10:30am on Thursday morning. None of us really slept. We had a good time driving down.

After getting camp set up we headed to the track area. We were about a mile from the track. The track is located in the mountains so it is very hilly. I am so glad I took my tennis shoes. I usually wear flip flops! We were able to catch a shuttle to down town Bristol for a street party. There were drivers cars, a few drivers signing autographs, tons of freebies and fun things going on. The street is was on is actually in both Virgina and Tennessee! Later that night we watched the Hauler Parade. All the haulers headed to the track at the same time from downtown Bristol. It was pretty cool to see them all lite up at night, honking their horns at everyone lining the streets. We all then headed back to our camper and crashed since it had been since Wednesday since we had slept.

On Friday we made a big breakfast and then headed to the track for the first time to watch practice. The Bristol Motor Speedway is like a huge stadium, kind of like U of M's stadium. Most of the other Speedways are bigger and it's hard to see the entire race. At Bristol, no matter where you sit you can see everything that is going on! We watched some of the practice and took some pictures of the track and cars before we headed back to make a big lunch/dinner. The Nationwide Series Race called The Food City 250 was on Friday night. We watched that race. Since it was not full, we moved down closer to the finish line to watch most of the race. David Ragen in the #6car won. Another long walk home up and down hills followed that race.

On Saturday we were lazy after breakfast, it was another hot and humid day in Tennessee! We made another big dinner before heading to the track for the Sprint Cup Race. Pre Race Ceremonies were awesome! There was a concert, driver introductions, a special tribute to our Soldiers and a fly over by some Military Jets! The Race was a blast! The weather was nice, it got dark and cooled off. #18 Kyle Busch ended up winning the race, not to many happy fans. He is not to liked in the racing world, he has a bad boy attitude. My driver #9 Kasey Kahne did not do to well, but did finish the race. There were Fireworks after the race and they were some of the best I have ever seen! We had another long walk back to our camper after the race and it started to rain, but it felt pretty good after being so hot all weekend.

Sunday morning we woke up and quickly made breakfast and packed up the camper to head home. We had a long drive ahead of us through the mountains. It ended up taking us longer to get home. We went a different way and stopped a few more times. We drove through the Cumberland Gap, which was so beautiful. We pulled in our driveway at about 1am and crashed.

Looking forward to going back next year!

The Lowe's Hauler all lite up during the Hauler Parade on Thursday night.

Driver Kevin Harvick received a key to the cities of Bristol at the Street Party we attended.

Looking down State Street in Bristol during the street party.

Just a few of the thousands of campers that were parked around the track and surrounding area!

My driver Kasey Kahne heading out to final practice.

Some of the cars being worked on during practice.

Inside Bristol Motor Speedway!

Bristol Motor Speedway is the World's Fastest Half Mile Track!

Looking out at the Merchandise Haulers around the track.

We are now part of the Guinness Book of World Records! The crowd of over 160,000 people all sang a song Karaoke Style! We sang Garth Brook's "Friends in Low Places"! It was a lot of fun.