Rednecks invade!!!

Main camp ground right next to the track
More campers and you can see some in the distance on the hills
Campers on the distant hills and the MOB coming in to the Cup Race
Great seats...this is what 160k people looks like!
View of the Start/Finish line and cars coming out of Turn 4..we could see the entire track!!

For all of you race fans (and I are one!!!), you know that Bristol tickets are the most coveted and most sought after tickets on the Sprint Cup circuit...and now we live in the middle of it ALL ! ! ! We can see the track from our back porch and the road out of our back yard is one of the major roadways into and out of the track. We had been watching RVs and campers filter into town all week and now, our lush, rolling green hills were covered with campers. Early Friday, reports were indicating there were 25k - 30k campers in the area.

Let me back up to mid-week, I found out that my parents and oldest sister were heading to Germany and considered traveling up to Richmond to see them before their two week journey. Looking at my schedule, I was going to be in Asheville for a meeting and would not get home until 6:00, load up and hit the road by 7:00 if we were lucky and then get to Richmond around midnight. Spend Saturday with my family and then early Sunday, hit the road so we could get back to town before the race was over. I decided against it. The next day, one of my sales people emailed me saying she had two tickets for the Nationwide Race and Sprint Cup Race and asked if I wanted them....hum....YES!!! Her husband drove down off the mountain to deliver them to me at my office on Friday - I was soooo excited!!

Saturday rolls around and we got up, fed Ricky and went to Kristi's parents and dropped him off for the day. We got back to the house and it started raining! I pulled up the weather on the computer, pulled out my scanner and picked up some of the track banter from the house and was trying to keep up with all of the news...even had a friend traveling back from Myrtle Beach listening to NASCAR radio keeping me updated. A 2:30 start time was delayed, radio said they would update at 3:00....3:00 came and next update would be at 4:00. It got closer to 4:00 and of course I had checked the radar the whole hour and knew the rain was stopping and got our gear together. During that hour, we lost our local coverage of the race, so I checked back on the scanner at 4:00 for the update and they said that drivers were being called to their cars!!! I quickly got Kristi and we headed out of the door...hopped over the fence seperating our back yard and a field, then squeezed through a fence that led to the main road. We had been walking about 5 mins and the planes flew by indicating the start of the race - oh well, so we were going to miss a little bit. You can't imagine all of the campers filled in ever open spot, every nook and cranny...everywhere! People were already drunk, stumbling up hills, walking crooked...don't know if they ever made it to the track, and if they did, I wonder how much they remember from it. We made it to the track and they were already working the 2nd caution...got to the ticket line and Kristi had brought an umbrella and in the trash it went - not allowed to have umbrellas in tracks. We got seated and about 30 laps had gone by. I have a scanner and headset that muffles the noise and Kristi let me listen to some of the race as they were restarting and then I gave them to her to help her ear drum out (ruptured a few weeks ago from severe ear infection). We realized that we needed a splitter and another headset. The heavens opened up again and this system was setting in for awhile. We put on our ponchos that we bought for Disney a couple years ago and walked home. We did stop by a booth and found a splitter and another headset for tomorrow. It took us about 25-30 mins to walk...not bad considering people sit in traffic for hours before they even move 100 yards. We cleaned up and then got Little Man from Mimi and Didi's.

Sunday came and we had to get going a little earlier and today Uncle Mike, Aunt Sherry and Niece Carson were watching Ricky. I had two friends from Carson-Newman drive in from the Knoxville area who had Suite tickets and parked at our house and walked over. They needed to "check in"so they went over to the track pretty early. Later on, we got ready, Mike/Sherry/Carson arrived and we headed on our trek to the track. We looked around at some of the haulers carrying the souvenirs and we are either too tight, not fanatical, or just not interested, but we didn't buy anything. We then went to our seats and settled in with track burgers and a hot dog. Weather was OK, at least it didn't rain and it was a great race...except that Denny Hamlin had his fuel pump give out on him for the second straight year. It was cool lilstening to crew chief talk to driver, driver talk to pit crew, and spotters talking to drivers on the scanner...plus the much needed radio commentary to keep you informed of where everyone is running. Leaving the track on Sunday was much worse than yesterday. The biggest mob of people heading the same direction we were. It was like herding cattle. All weekend, Kristi and I couldn't imagine the transformation our area experienced over the past week. We got back home and saw my friends off and then we took turns showering to get the track smell off of us. It wasn't until we had Ricky in bed and it was 10:00 when the traffic on the main road was finally dying down....incredible. We have a few pics to share, but in August, I will have to do a better job capturing the true scene. Lots of funny people watching, lots of sad drunks, but most importantly - an AWESOME RACE!!! Can't wait until August now!!!