In May, I entered into a contest through 104.1 WTQR. They were giving away race tickets to veterans, so I submitted a little bio of Jay's time in the Army. I kind of forgot about it, so I was really surprised when they called to tell me we had won tickets to the All-Star Shootout and the Coca Cola 600. They called on Thursday, before the race that Saturday night. While I was driving to pick them up, I called to make some arrangements for Hayden Saturday night and then called Jay to tell him a) we had tickets and b) we had a babysitter. So all he had to do was show up!
The All-Star race was a shorter, evening race so we decided to take the bike for the ride down to Charlotte. Neither of us had ever been to a Nascar race, so we were interested to see it all play out. We got there in a decent amount of time on the bike, and found that parking is much easier when you're taking a two-wheeled vehicle! We had a lot of fun people-watching as we headed to our seats. What a fun night we had! The race was more exciting than the normal, longer ones because the drivers were racing for $1 million, and it wasn't too crowded. We decided for the next race that we'd make a day of it, but were just fine with our short evening out.
The Coca-Cola 600 we knew to be a long race, so we made more arrangements for Hayden, packed up the mini-grill and burgers and sides, towels and sunscreen, coolers and snacks. We showed up in the early afternoon to grill, enjoy the sunshine and atmosphere. The race was on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, so there was a thick air of patriotism and pride for our men in uniform that have sacrificed so much.
After we grilled we made our way into the track. The pre-race festivities were pretty awesome! They had several veterans and even some Medal of Honor winners there. For the driver introductions, they had active duty service members on hand and some taped introductions from soldiers downrange. Darius Rucker was there to sing the national anthem, and at the end a stealth bomber flew overhead. It was amazing! They had members of the 82nd Airborne parachute in. They had a general there to present an Army wife with an award for her service. Little did she know (nor the rest of us!) they were surprising her with her husband's early return from Iraq! It was a really great way to spend Memorial Day weekend, and I was glad to be in the presence of so many that appreciate our military, even though they don't wear the uniform.
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