The LazyAssGeek’s

This past weekend was Val’s first Pocono Race Weekend experience and as always, a good time had by all.  We headed up to my folks place late Saturday afternoon after making sure the kids were squared away.  Joe & Nat and the boys were up there as well as my parents and Doug, soon to be joined by our friends from Ohio, Ray & Shana. After a good dinner of dogs, burgers, roast pork, salad, fruit and pretty much anything else you can think of we settled into the basement to catch up and BS.  The Nationwide race had started so that served as early evening background noise.

Lou joined us not long after we’d settled in and added those evil Virginia peanuts to the mix, along with his sterling conversation of course.  He really let his hair down and had a personal best of FOUR beers! Kyle Busch won the Nationwide race but we missed his now-controversial guitar smashing celebration by turning over to the IRL Texas race. We had dragged along an Xbox and the Rock Band instruments, but nobody ever seemed to have motivation enough to move off the sofas so we never did play.

Sunday dawned an hour later than Val & I thought it did as the clock in the bedroom we were using was an hour behind. We headed over to the track around 11:30 with Ray& Shana, Joe & Lou were waiting on Billy & Bono to arrive in Billy’s truck, as well as for Mike Martin. Billy had a delivery to make Monday early AM at the NY state border so our dad did some calling around and was able to wrangle him a spot to park his rig behind the small shopping center just up the road from the house. We all wound up getting to the track at the same time as using the “back way” proved worthless this year.  We have always parked in the big grass lots just across the street from the track but they weren’t in use this year and so we had to slug our way sitting in traffic to get into one of the lots at the front of the track.  I called Joe and was able to spare him that.

Unfortunately the delay didn’t leave us any time to head over to pit road, but we did head into the fan zone area and Val got herself her first NASCAR swag, a #20 visor and a matchbox-size (1/64) #20 car.  She thinks Joey is so CUTE!

Val's First NASCAR Swag

We found our new seats without any trouble, though I was again frustrated by changes I don’t feel were for the better.  In the past we had always been given our wrist bands as we displayed our tickets entering the “Terrace” area but this time we had to go track down a dude wearing a Home Depot pouch and stand in another line.  Not a big deal, but senseless to me.  Joe said they didn’t have to do that and got their bands as the came in so who the heck knows.  One change that was for the better was the food.  This year they had pulled pork and salisbury steak and both were pretty darned good, a definite upgrade from the previous years pulled pork and more typical picnic fare. Typical clueless bartenders again though and we of course had to help out… particularly Joe & Da Boyz who hung out down by the keg for at least half the race “helping” him pour the pitchers.

But before that, we had the requesite fly-by during the National Anthem.  Now a cargo plane isn’t typically the most exciting fly-by out there, but when a C5 Galaxy buzzes the tower it is just flat an awesome sight. As my friend Jim Hall put it… “C5 Galaxies and bumblebees, neither meant to get off the ground.”  After it did the fly-by it turned out over the backstretch and exited the speedway directly over the grandstand.  I took this short video to try to give a feel for what that was like, but doesn’t come close!

I won’t give a recap of the race as journalists and TV does a far better job, but here’s a link to an nicely edited recap of the race on YouTube. It was very cool that my boy Tony pulled off the victory, for Val as well cause if her cutie pie Joey wasn’t going to win it then it may as well be Tony. Thanks to her co-worker Andy for the use of his scanner and headsets.  First time I’ve used a set that included a microphone so you could talk to the person you’re sharing the scanner with and it defintely comes in handy.  Of course once the field gets spread out the sound of engines going by practically non-stop makes it nearly impossible to have a conversation even with those. As mentioned previously, Joe, Bono and Billy hung out by the keg.  I joined them for a bit but between being deafened by the engines and the fact that it is WAY too easy to keep pouring beers into your cup and into you while standing there I retreated to my seat while I could still walk!

After Tony stretched his fuel out, and after we kick started our hearts from the Bag-man’s “he’s out of gas!” call on the backstretch when Tony shut off his engine to save fuel, to take the win and did some very happy donuts we headed to the car for what I was concerned would be a brutal trip out of the lot.  Fortunately I was dead wrong and we got out without too much of a wait and getting out to 115 wasn’t bad either.

Tony Wins!

We stopped for the now-traditional pizza at Dominic’s and headed back to our folks place for the usual post-race celebrations.  Joe, Billy & Bono were showing the effects of spending far too much time standing down by the keg and when Joe went to “lay down for a few minutes” none of us believed him. Billy was going to send him on an ocean voyage but was easily distracted.  Lou had the idea of putting the bear-ottoman from the living room in bed with Joe and we SHOULD have done that, but took pity on the pathetic bastard.

Lots of firsts on Sunday – Val’s first race in person, NASCAR debuts double-file restarts and Tony posts the first win for an owner-driver in over 500 starts.  A good day and good weekend all around!

The full group of pictures can be found by clicking this link.