Jeremy

Well, we finally made it back from Michigan. I had full intentions of blogging each evening of the days events however the campground did not have wireless internet. If anyone has ever went through the "Full Nascar Experience", then you can probably imagine the "internet" is most likely not what is on other campers and Nascar fans minds.

More important than any other story or excerpt in this post, let me start by saying I just won the prop bet with Jimmy Johnson destroying Dale Earnhardt in todays race.

Oh hell, I don't even know where to start when chronicling the weekends events. But the picture on the left should get you into they right mindset if you choose to continue reading on. (This picture was from the first days practice and qualifying) There are so many good stories from this trip, I am not going to be able to cram them all into one blog post. But I will try my best to share the good ones. We showed up Thursday afternoon and were the second R.V. at our campsite. The next people to show up rolled in on a old beat up Holiday Rambler R.V. packed with around 14 people.

These fine Nascar fans were from a small town called Swisher Iowa. Never in my life have I seen 14 people get a campsite and tent put together so quickly. It was almost as if these people were on a mission to get to the beer drinking and loud music as fast as they could. Needless to say about 30 minutes later they had assembled a huge tent filled with a full DJ set-up and a restaurant style grill. This was the beginning of a long weekend.

That evening was somewhat tame. We sat by the fire with a few drunks from Swisher and a gynecologist from Ohio......Nascar brings out all types I suppose. One of the guys names was Jimmy, and he kept the entire weekend interesting. How this man is alive or has a liver anymore is beyond me....more about his antics later

Forget about the rambler and tent campers, here is a picture of how baller Nascar fans roll.....actually not really, but it's a picture of me and a losing Nascar gambler.



The following day we headed down to the track to watch practice and qualifying. This was pretty cool as Mr. E got us pit passes. Being that close to the races and the cars was pretty amazing. Even more amazing were the amount of vendors both at the track and across the street in one of the campgrounds. Just about anything Nascar you could ever want is here.

Allow me to go off on a business tangent. Although Nascar has the reputation of being a hillbilly sport, the actual business behind it is quite savvy. Neither the NFL, MLB, or NBA can top the branding or marketing of Nascar. Every single fan has hundreds of dollars in gear for their favorite driver.... Not too mention all the crap they hang on their trailer (And in Swisher, Iowa.....most of this probably gets returned to the front yard). Then they are smart enough that each car brings in millions upon millions of dollars in sponsorship from every major company in the world.

Nascar in general is raining money. One thing that was really cool however is that the entire sport is there for the fans. I could go on and on about this, but to give you one prime example, the fans are allowed to bring coolers into the track with their own beer and snacks. No other professional sport that I am aware of allows this.

Okay now back to the drunken stupidity. The first night I decided at 1:00 AM to sleep outside in my hammock. When I bought a hammock this summer I told my wife I was going to sleep in it outside at some point in my life. Cross that off the list of things to do. Sleep Outside in Hammock. It was actually quite peaceful and I got a good nights sleep.

Did I mention the camper neighbors had a DJ setup with two huge speakers. Every night once the rest of the campground was sleeping, the speakers got cranked up and we were treated to a little Neil Diamond. If I never hear this song again, I will be O.K. with that.

Although the Cup race got rained out on Sunday, I did get to see the Bush Race on Saturday. It is crazy how loud and fast these cars actually go. You really have to attend a race like this live to get the true feeling of what 43 cars going 200 mph looks, feels, and sounds like.

R.V. gets hit by a golf cart:

I had to bold the title up to this because it is just so unbelievable. On Saturday night we polished off a few beers and called it a night around 1:30. I am laying in the camper and half asleep when all the sudden a huge BOOM hits the trailer and actually moves it. For a second I thought I was just drunk dreaming it, you know like when your half asleep and you get startled and wake up.

Well a few minutes later Mr. E gets up and says "I'll be damned, I think our trailer just got hit". Sure enough we get up, go outside and our trailer got hit by a drunk on a golf cart. Not only did this guy hit our trailer twice, he then continued down the hill and went into a pick-up truck. He avoided a telephone poll, a guide wire, and a bunch of other dangers. Little did we know when Mr. E and I were checking out the damage at 2 something in the morning, the driver of the golf cart was passed out under the pickup truck he hit.

You'll never guess who it was that hit our trailer. It was Jimmy. The best part was the next morning when we confronted him, he was laughing and telling us about the whole thing..... I guess that is how they apologize in Iowa. The good news however is that Jimmy did fix all the damage.

Where was Karl through all this you might ask? This dude slept right through out camper being struck as well as myself and his dad getting out of bed and going outside to check it out. You tell me, does this look like the type of Nascar Fan that would sleep through an incident like that.

From Saturday night through Monday night it pretty much rained non-stop. The race did get canceled on Sunday and we never made it back to the track. We did make the best out of it though as we had an awning on the R.V. and the neighbors had a fully equipped circus tent. Not too mention we had a cooler full of beer and a load of firewood.

The Poker Game:

On Sunday Night we found ourselves in the middle of a 1-2 NL game in the circus tent with the boys from Swisher. All I can say is fuck....these people were really bad. I started off on a nice run and rolled up around $170 or so. But then I lost most of it to "Kenny" when my K8 (trip 8's) got beat by his A8. And holy shit when Kenny won that money you should of seen his wife. One would think this man just won the Iowa State Lottery. I proceeded to play very drunk and very badly the rest of the evening. At one point I became a credit player playing on $60 from Karl. I think my net loss was around $200.

The good news however though is that Karl took these guys for around $500 or so. He was on fire to say the least. This is pretty amazing considering Karl is usually a donkey at poker. I am just glad it wasn't me that took these poor individuals house and car payments.

Overall the Nascar Experience was something to remember and hopefully a trip I will make every year. Getting the opportunity to hang out with Karl and his dad for a few days was priceless and I can't think of a better way to spend a few vacation days. I will post a few more pictures later, I think I have a good one with me sitting in the stands wearing the headset. <--------Hardcore Nascar fan right there.

Winning the bet is actually quite nice too. I am looking forward to inviting some friends over to sit at my house and watch Karl groom my yard as well as wash my vehicles.

I hope Karl enjoyed the $500 upswing you had against the Swishers Karl. Because sometime in the next couple weeks he will be my bitch for the afternoon.

Although being a gambler I would allow him to make me a double or nothing bet for the race in Bristol........................or even worse let it ride on the Green Bay Packers. It feels good to be a winner today.

Next up I will be posting my thoughts on the ridiculous mess that is going on at ChipLeader.