Happy29BudFan's Blog

What a Memorial Day weekend!

It started at 7 am Thursday Morning as we headed out to Charlotte for a five day weekend that would include a stay at the Hampton Inn, just down the street from the Nascar Hall of Fame.

We went through Speed Street, which is an area of about ten blocks in Downtown Charlotte that had a CocaCola, Miller Lite, and Cheerios Stages for concerts that went on Thursday to Saturday night. There were plenty of people and food.

Then the real fun started Friday morning with the Coca Cola Track Walk at Charlotte Motor Speedway. We had the opportunity to see Greg Biffle, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Ned Jarrett as we walked a mile and a half around the high banked Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was beautiful, hot, and a wonderful experience. I wish all tracks had this available for those that visited could have this opportunity as well! After the walk we had lunch that was provided by the track as well, enjoying an ice cold drink and a hamburger. I would love to do this everyday!

Later that same evening….

We had the pleasure of going to a Kenny Wallace Fan Club event and talking with Kenny and his Wife Kim and family. This was an awesome night as we were able to be one family and get to know Kenny and his family! They also had games for members to play. One of them being a numbers game where you had to add up the number 36 from chips or tiles that were in a bag. I think the Ladies ended up being faster than the Gentlemen, but it was fun for my Mother In Law!

I definitely appreciate and thank Kim and Kenny taking the time for us all to join them in this wonderful event!

The next day, came an early morning for us to head to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the History 300. We arrived at the track around 12:30 and headed for the shops and merchandise trailers to do a little shopping! We watched some of practice and qualifying before the race.

The cast of Pawn Stars were the Grand Marshals and Rick Dale of Restoration Hardware was the Honorary Starter for the History 300.

The race itself was pretty action packed. There were seven cautions with seventeen on the lead lap, as Brad Keselowski swept the field for a great win! This ended up being one of the best races and finishes for Danica Patrick finishing thirteenth with a clean car. It was good to see her run without any issues or interactions. We did have Angela Cope’s engine blow up right in front of us and a car catching on fire after a smack in to the wall, as well as Travis Pastrana spinning three times.

We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon by heading to a park and walking around Downtown Charlotte to see some of the sites and grab dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings at Nascar Hall of Fame. 

We left the hotel Sunday around 12:30, arriving around 1:30 at the track for the Coke 600. We stopped by to get our pit passes before heading down to the infield and stopping by the Tweetup. This had to be one of the best Tweetups ever as we had an appearance by two of your 2013 Hall of Fame Inductees Rusty Wallace and Leonard Wood. It was good to meet a fellow tweeter, @JenniferLynn_13 I did get a chance to talk to @bobpockrass about Charlotte and Kansas and what I thought about Charlotte. I told him that we are spoiled with how the track is set up and how fan friendly Kansas Speedway is compared to Charlotte Motor Speedway. I will tell you that @CLTMotorSpeedway needs to change how they do things and make it better for fans to be more comfortable on the track. It would be nice if CMS would allow fans to cross at the seats from the infield instead of having to go through a tunnel that has access as one way, but made it two way with no room to move, going up to turn four and walking all the way around to the main entrance where our seats were. Also CMS will want to look in to adding water bottle refill stations around the track where the food vendor stations are for fans to stay hydrated. Also CMS may want to check or change their food vendors as several fans got sick, as well as myself, from the polish sausage and Bojangles Chicken among other vendors. Other than that CMS is a beautiful facility that has aged, but not with beauty..lol!

This was one of the best events for honoring and remembering our troops. There was a performance of NHRA Top Fuel Alcohol Dragsters that went down the last half of pit road towards pit exit. That was so cool to see for the first time! There were two different seven gun salutes, the first with cannons and the other with rifles. The cannons shook the track and stands like a small earthquake or aftershock! There wasn’t too much to the race Sunday as it mainly ran under green flag, with four cautions for debris and a first win this season for Kasey Kahne!

We had a fabulous and memorable weekend! I hope everyone enjoys the photos! =)

What an ending the Nascar Season brought us in 2011! We witnessed the greatest comeback EVER in any sport in the World! Who would have thought Tony Stewart would have won 5 of the 10 Nascar Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship Races? In the end, you have to feel bad for Bob Osborne not calling the right shots when leading the most laps in Homestead. 

With all the changes during the “offseason”, the one I think everyone will be more interested in Darian Grubb and Denny Hamlin vs. Steve Addington and Tony Stewart. This in my eyes should be the most talked about story this season! Sadly, I am going to take Steve and Tony to win this battle and Finish well in the Top Three. As far as Darian and Denny, I see this duo doing well and Denny having a better season than he has had, thus finishing anywher from Fifth to Seventh Place.

There were other changes made as well in the Nascar Camping World Truck Series with KHI leaving and joining teams with Richard Childress Racing Nationwide Program. With this change, this will give some drivers that extra level of competition they have not seen. I am really looking forward to what the Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series will bring us this season, with or without a Kyle or Kurt Busch mention!!

With this short synopsis, you will find my Season picks for all Series…Good Luck to all Drivers, Teams and Crew Members this season!

Camping World Truck Series

Champion – Matt Crafton

Runner Up – James Buescher

Dark Horse – Nelson Piquet Jr

ROTY – Ty Dillon

Nationwide Series

Champion – Elliott Sadler / Justin Allgaier / Austin Dillon (too hard to pick just one!)

Runner Up – Kenny Wallace

ROTY – Cole Whitt / Austin Dillon

Sprint Cup Series

Champion – Kevin Harvick / Tony Stewart (yet again, too hard to pick just one!)

Runner Up – Jeff Gordon / Brad Keselowski (hey I can’t choose just one!)

Dark Horse – AJ Allmendinger

What a weekend! It was a HOT and an enjoyable weekend. I do want to start out by apologizing to any Kyle Busch fans that might happen to read.

This weekend was a pretty special weekend as Kansas Speedway started their season with the Camping World Truck Series O’Reilly 250 Saturday afternoon. The race itself was fairly short with not to much excitement, UNTIL the last 10 laps. It was great to see someone like Joey Coulter drive the truck til they lose it! I will tell you I did nothing but cheer for Joey to pass Kyle Busch for 5th place. It was also great to see someone fight for what they deserved and did it cleanly and with grace. The only thing bad to come out of that situation was Kyle Busch either congratulated Joey on the 5th place, or was the usual Kyle Busch that was pissed off because someone took him out of the top 5. To Kyle Busch, please note my tweet over the weekend. Also note that I don’t honestly see how you have fans or can call your self a role model for kids of any age. Your actions and comments are that of a 5 year old with no competence what so ever. As far as what happened this weekend with the altercation between you and Richard Childress, it has been a long time coming. The only reason Richard did what he did was nobody else in the garage had the nerve to do it. I now realize why Rick Hendrick let you go, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why Joe Gibbs even tries to cope with you in his camp. This has to be the worst I have ever seen any driver act at any level. I truly do hope that one day in life you look back and realize how good you have it. You have a beautiful wife, which her attitude is as soily gracious as yours, a lifetime of achievements that will be hard to meet or beat, and a life that every other driver moving up in life dreams of.

Not to take anything away from Clint Bowyer and his spectacular, dominating win, which was needed for him!

That same night, the Nationwide Series STP 300 took place in Chicagoland Speedway. Who would have thought we would have two great races in one night!??? The race wasn’t to exciting until the last lap when Justin Allgaier coasted to another career win by edging out Carl Edwards by about 3 car lengths and Trevor Bayne by a second. Sadly, Brad Keselowski, the winner of the Kansas Speedway STP 400, blew an engine about half way through the STP 300.

The next day at Kansas Speedway, we had tickets to the infield, not quite pit passes, but passes that allow you to go back to an area where you have access to drivers, pre-race inspections, and autographs. Last year, I happen to fall upon a spot on the side where the Camping World Truck Series usually parks in the garages and got quite a few autographs from the Nationwide Series Drivers and Crews as well from this very same spot. Now mind you, we do have a media center, but if it gets to crowded with fans behind barricades, they will make the drivers actually go through the media center, out the back and to the garages where the Camping World Trucks would park. I stood in my very spot today, and seeing also kindly fist-bumping, Travis Kvapil, Paul Menard, and a few others. After the drivers meeting I was down more towards the garages and when everyone started dispersing, I saw Chad Knaus. I found a set of 2008 cards, one of them being Jimmie Johnson. I was hoping to get Chad to sign it, with Jimmie following, but to Chad’s demise, I asked him once, ran back to my other spot, actually faced him and asked him for the autograph, he looked me in the eyes and had the mouse balls to walk away. My reply to him was, Thank you very much sir! Sadly, I am sure I am not the first one to be shunned by him, as he joins my list of shunners: Michael Waltrip(2 years ago) and Ray Evernham(2004 Indy Brickyard). Thanks again Chad, another reason nobody likes you or Jimmie. Hell, you might as well jump in the shallow boat with Kyle and paddle down the river of sorrow. LOL! Anyway, I waited a while and happen to have Kevin Harvick and Gil sign my hat. So be sure come October, my spot will be one I might have to take a lease out on.

Congrats on a huge win to Brad Keselowski! He kept freaking me out everytime he would cime by with the engine cut off. Thank goodness he was able to get restarted each lap!

With this being my first hometown blog, I thought I would try to take some notes during the race for the blog, but as unexciting as these races were, there wasn’t really much to take down to put in here. I did happen to grab a few quotes from Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick during the race. After the start of the race, Kevin told Gil that the car was tight, tight, tight. Gil’s response to Kevin was “close your mouth”, Kevin said “my mouth is tight”? Around lap 138 when Tony was fighting Denny Hamlin for the lead, Denny had one case of blocking, which we know Tony does not approve of. Once Tony was able to get up to Denny, Tony told his spotter, Bob(@EyeInTheSky14 Twitter), “I am going to wreck the fucking idiot”. The next thing you hear is Bob telling Tony “not today”. The next lap, 141, Tony took the lead and led about 20 laps, but couldnt keep up with the leader as a late call to pit came at the end of the race.

With the update today from Nascar on the penalty regarding Richard Childress, do you think probation through December 31, 2011 and $150,000 is excessive? Although Richard Childress accepts responsibility, he had no remorse for his actions. My opinion sticks, and I am forever a fan of Richard Childress and Richard Childress Racing. Thank you Richard for all you have done for the sport.

Overall, this was a great start to the Kansas Speedway Nascar season! Thank you to Richard Petty and Kansas Speedway for allowing fans to enjoy this moment!!

As always, as this is my page, I am expressing my opinion and only my opinion. Please feel free to drop a comment or add me if you are on twitter, @29TC14. Everyone have a great week!