Wet and Wild!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Race Day greeted us with sunny skies and warm temperatures!  We visited the garage and chatted with Tom and gave good luck wishes to the team.  There were lots of people around for the big race today, and the crowd included yet another Super Fan! 

The Pace cars were ready to go.

And, the tires were laid out and ready. 

The #24 team was sporting a new (or renovated) pit box—check out all the monitors for the engineers!

 

 

 

The pre-race ceremonies were quite a production.  There were thousands of people on the track waiting for the concert and driver introductions.  Luke Bryan was the entertainer and put on quite a show. 

 

 

 

 

The Thunderbirds also put on quite a show with the flyover. After the initial flyover, they came back, and peeled off one by one and flew upside down over the stands!  It was very cool.

The race started, and was a good clean race for 38 laps until the rain came. 

It was supposed to be just a “pop up” shower, so we sat in the stands in our raincoats, and waited awhile, but the sprinkles became showers and ended up being a downpour.  The crowds had all gathered underneath the stands, so it was almost impossible to move around.  We decided to go back to the motorhome and wait out the rain.  As we were headed out, there was an announcement over the loudspeakers  that severe weather was coming, and the grandstands should be evacuated.  We hurried “home”, put our wet clothes in the dryer, watched the tv reports on tornadoes and lightning all around us, then laid down and took a nap!

Six hours later, the race resumed with a lot of help from the Air Titans drying the track.  The track looked a lot different at 8:30 pm.

  At the start of the race, there were plenty of strategy discussions, as rain was supposed to return to the area in the next two hours. But, this time, the rain stayed away, and the race went on.  Danica took another hard hit and ended up right in front of us.  

  Carl Edwards was in the wreck at the end of the race, and also ended up right in front of us. 

 

In spite of the wrecks, the race was a good one…lots of good racing, 42 lead changes, and another exciting finish (at 11:30 pm)!  Dale Earnhardt Jr. won, and Junior nation went wild!  Jeff Gordon ended up 4th, a very good finish after a long, long day.  The Hendrick shop ended up with 3 cars in the top 5, so had a great day overall.

Lake Lloyd was much quieter tonight, as the 56th annual Daytona 500 was written into the history books.