A long weekend at the track

Race weekend at Michigan International Speedway has come and gone. It will be back in July for the IRL and August for NASCAR. Usually I don't say this, but this weekend up at MIS wore me out.

Friday afternoon during NASCAR NEXTEL qualifying and the ARCA race I never sat down. I stood on hard concrete and asphalt for 6 hours. That evening when I finally made it home, my legs and feet were in pain. Saturday morning when I woke up, my legs were still in so much pain. To let my legs recover, I skipped my weekend run. Besides not running, I did some work at home and the office and took the time to relax. It was nice not having to go to MIS Saturday.

Sunday morning I drove up to MIS around 8:30 a.m to attend the photographer's meeting. After the meeting I went back to my car - read for 1.5 hours, hit lunch and then waited for driver introductions to start. All of the pre-race ceremony activities were moved up by 10 minutes because rain was in the forecast, but the start of the race remained the same 1:40 p.m. After all of the introductions, the fly over, the national anthem, drivers getting strapped into their cars, it started to rain right before Adam Sandler said the most famous words in motorsports, "Gentlemen, start your engines!" Everyone had to wait out the 45 minute rain delay. Finally the weather cleared up and Adam Sandler finally said those words.

With 9 cautions for crashes, debris and rain- the race was a total of 2 hours 10 minutes and 19 seconds. Kasey Kahne won the rain-shortened race with only 129 laps of 200 completed. My favorite driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr finished in 3rd place. With all of the cautions, rain delays it just seemed to drag the day on.

After battling with all of the other photographers and TV crews for position in a tiny garage for Victory Lane, I got to sit in race traffic for 25-30 minutes. I found my exit on back roads and headed back to the office without much traffic, except the 4 jerks who wanted to run me off the small back roads.

I was glad to see the race end early. I don't know how much longer my feet and legs would have been able to stand on the concrete. But I was also disappointed to see the race end so soon. Dale Jr. Finished in third place, who knows if he could have challenged Kasey for the lead? Who knows? It has been almost 24 hours since I was at the track, and my legs still hurt.