On Thursday, Casy and Jim had returned early from their turkey hunting trip in Central Texas because Casy had a doctor's appointment here at MD Anderson in preparation for last week's surgery.
On Friday morning, I decided to pull Will out of school (Brian was at a tennis tournament) and take him and Casy to Baytown to see...
I had never been to a professional drag race and had attended only a few local races as a young adult. But, drag racing is Casy's passion...and I figured since we had the opportunity to see the pros live and in action, we should go for it.
If I could use only one word to describe it, that one word would be 'LOUD!!!!' My ear plugs were not enough protection. When the dragsters would take off, I would have to put my hands over my ears...with the ear plugs in. And there were people in attendance with infants!
There was rain in the forecast for the early afternoon, but there is often rain in the forecast at some part of the day here along the Gulf coast.
Casy, Will and I drove the hour and a half to Baytown, stood in line to buy our tickets, walked through to have our tickets torn, got our hand stamped, took three steps inside the race park and the rain started!
Thankfully, we had purchased pit side tickets...so we took the opportunity to walk among the racers and their cars while the skies spitted and sputtered a little. As soon as the track was dry, we took our seats to watch the funny cars, the dragsters and the stock cars do their thing. It was fun...and LOUD. Have I mentioned that it was LOUD?
We watched one dragster whose parachute didn't open. Thank goodness, it was a long track and he had time to stop. We watched another dragster whose motor shot flames ten feet or so into the air. Then the rain started again.
We once again headed to the pits, looking and shopping as we went. We grabbed a bite to eat at a concession stand...and then, I told the boys to take off on their own. I was tired...so I sat up in the stands waiting for them to prep the track for more races while Casy and Will took in the sights and experience that is NHRA. (I was well entertained 'people watching'.)
As darkness fell, so did the temperatures. After trying all evening to dry out the track, they finally called the races around 8:30. It took us two and half hours to get home, thanks to construction on I-10...but, all in all, we had a good day.
Would I go back to the Spring Nationals? Maybe. But now I definitely want to see Casy race in person. It is so much more exciting to watch in person than on television. Though, I think I will get some real ear plugs next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment