The Long Dirt Road: NASCAR At Kansas Speedway For First Night Race!

May 9-10, 2014 ~ Well it's that time of year.... yep time to enjoy a little NASCAR at the Kansas Speedway! This year would be a little different because it would be the very first night race at the track! The best part... this year the weather would be perfect!!!

A high school friend, Kim (North) Ballard would be riding with us to the race track. She had won tickets with HOT passes to this weekends race and her hubby wouldn't get to come up until Friday night after work. This was going to be exciting for us because she would be experiencing this fun time in the garage/pit area! We only had one minor issue... I left my good camera at the shop! Thank goodness one of our employees drove like a crazy person to meet us! (We turned around and met at Arrow Rock exit) Geez Michele.... how do you forget your camera?!?!

We would be meeting John Sutherland up there and between us three we would show Kim the ropes!

This is me getting my game face on... Ha!

First signature.... Richard Petty!

I think Kim likes how this is all working so far!

Next up... Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

then we spotted Jack Roush

then Clint Bowyer.....

but my all time favorite pictures were the following.....

Not only did he take the time to sign this great picture of Brandon and I with Carl at Texas Motor Speedway he even personalized it! I just wish some of the other drivers were 1/2 as nice as he is to his fans.

Yep that totally happened! Ha!

Seriously he is such a nice guy! I have so much respect for Carl and his family because he is just a down to earth guy. I have never seen him be rude or hateful to anyone and if he was busy or didn't have time to sign something he would be polite and not just walk by and ignore you. I really appreciated him taking the time to sign my stuff and take a quick picture! (Thanks to my hubby for taking pictures on our camera!)

It was pretty cool that Scotty and Cara with Clear 99 even asked Carl about this selfie on the radio...

http://www.clear99.com/scotty-caras-pitstop-with-carl-edwards-51314/
You can listen to the interview here.... (starts at .52 seconds)

http://www.zimmercommunications.com/podcasts/kclr/05-13-14carlafterkansas.mp3
Love it! (Brandon thought it was pretty cool too!)

Thank you Scotty and Cara.... Y'all ROCK!!!
https://www.facebook.com/ScottyandCara

Kim is a huge Dale Jr. fan and this picture made her whole day!

Kim was pretty much a pro at getting autographs about an hour after she got there!
Photo Credit: Some random dude trying to make small talk... using Kim's phone

Well y'all.... it was a pretty good day!

Got this awesome piece signed from Carl's car that was only ran twice with this custom design.
Thinking it was from 2012 in Michigan....
(thanks to John Sutherland for giving this to me)

A awesome picture from Bristol....

a great view from Daytona....

and of course this awesome picture of all three of us!
(Jeff Burg with Grindstone Digital was a rock star while getting all of this printed for us almost last minute! Loved his suggestion of putting this picture on canvas... it looks awesome!)

After a long hot day we were ready to get checked into our hotel....

They gave us our rooms....

and upgraded us to a nice parlor room between the rooms!
(Last time we rented hotel rooms here the GM said that if we stayed there again he would make sure that we had some awesome upgrades.... he stood behind his word and I appreciate that!)

This was our view off the balcony!

Well good mornin' my little sugar britches!
What did you say? Do I have a white shirt on under my grey one?

Nope... those are just some burnt chicken wings! Ouch!

May 10, 2014 would be the first time that Kansas Speedway will host a NASCAR Sprint Cup night race and we got to be there! So exciting!

We have never made it over to the start stop line to sign it until this weekend!

Pretty cool seeing everything from this view.... see the storm brewing?
(pictures were taken 5 minutes apart)

Yep this one happened too!
What a nice surprise to see Coach Pinkel at a NASCAR event!

Yep... this is crazy ol' me captured by my husband! Ha!

Crazy how the sun was out but within 5 minutes the storm should be hitting us. They were calling for 70 mph winds and tennis ball sized hail.

We headed for the truck as the sky got darker and huge rain drops began to fall...

By the time we made it to the truck there was maybe a minute or two of big rain drops then the storm just went around us... thank goodness! We decided to watch the race from here for a little while to see what the weather would do.