It’s Bristol, Baby!

One of Michael’s long time wishes has been to go to a night race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Well here we are. Over Easter weekend NASCAR is racing on dirt at Bristol. Lot’s of folks are pretty unhappy that they are racing on Easter night, so we will see if they do this again.

We camped at the Rogers Gardens Campground right across the street from the track. These people did a great job of taking care of everything. It was the only campground around the track that was filled to capacity. They had a few bumps in the road, but fixed any problems immediately. I was very impressed with the Rogers family and their hospitality.

We snuck into the track on Wednesday to see how the preparations were coming. They bring in dirt to cover the asphalt racing surface for this race. I would hate to be the guy that has to sweep up afterwards.

Our campground even had concession stands for food, beer, and merchandise. Ruckus was having a hard time trying to figure out what he wanted to order. He ended up with kibble.

We rented the scanner radios to listen to the drivers and their crews talk during the race. It is so loud inside the track that this the only way you hear anything. Talking to each other is impossible when the cars are under green flag racing.

We had great seats 32 rows up at the Start / Finish line. I don’t really think there are any bad seats in the place. A half mile track is not very big at all.

We took Ruckus out for a walk around the Track complex each day before we ditched him for the evening to go watch the races. He got to be pretty famous around there. Everywhere we went people were calling his name.

There was a family camped down the way from us that was missing their dog and showered him with affection. They put out this paper machete dog and Ruckus could not figure out why it would not play with him. It was hysterical to watch him with it.

Kevin Harvick is one of Michael’s favorite drivers. He does not like dirt racing though and found his way to the rear of the field a quickly as possible. Apparently that did not make it much more fun for him so he wrecked the car and went home!

The pageantry was great. They had the singer from Rascal Flats to sing the National Anthem which everyone in the place stood for.

It rained a few times in the course of the evening so the track stayed in good shape and the racing action was much, much better than anticipated.

During one of the rain delays, this fan decided to climb the flag stand. He saw the end of the race from the back of a police car in the parking lot.

On the last turn the 2nd place car tried to force the pace and checked them both. Unfortunately Kyle Busch was riding in 3rd and inherited the lead and victory.

On our way out, we drove to Downtown Bristol. It is a neat little town that straddles the state line. Drive one way and you are in Tennessee and the other side of the road is in Virginia.

Our little family really enjoyed ourselves in Bristol. We hope everyone had a great Easter. We will defiantly be exploring this area some more.