Friday at Pocono!
Jess
At the last minute I found out that a friend had gotten us hot passes for Pocono! For financial reasons (college) we couldn't stay for the entire three days since hotels are so expensive on race weekends, but we were able to go down Friday and had a great time!
The garage is definitely a wild place, even way before practice starts! Engines are running, crewmen are running around, drivers are starting to show up. You can really feel the intensity and excitement in the air!
(Spare part?? Where's the other half?!
)
Of course I had to go see where Michael's garage stall was! His car wasn't in it yet (still in inspection?) but after a few minutes a couple of his crewmen pushed it down the lane and into the stall.
I never did see Michael walking around - he must have snuck in through the other side of the garage - but I did get a few photos of him sitting in his car.
After that we headed over to David's stall to check that out.
All of a sudden he showed up and was chatting with a couple people. Then before I knew it he was walking right toward me! He was so incredibly nice and friendly! I can't say enough about what an awesome person David Reutimann is - no doubt one of the sweetest people in the garage.
I feel so lucky to have met him again! Unfortunately Danni and I were so overwhelmed we didn't get any pictures of him - darn it! 
From where we were we could also see into Casey's stall!
We also had a couple of the #15 crew smiling and waving to us, which was incredibly amusing. The funniest part was when Paul Menard arrived they turned and said something to him and he stared over as well!
We stayed there for a while as practice went on but then we had to move because we were in the way. So we went down to a big clear spot and were able to take some really cool ground-level photos of the cars driving by.
We watched qualifying from the infield, which was pretty cool (it gets really hot in the garage during practice and I'd forgotten my water in the car, so we decided to stay out in the field where it was cooler). I wish we had a taller car so we could have climbed on the roof to get a better view! It's really too bad Michael went out first - I was so unhappy when he the the first guy that I saw out there!
We had to leave after quals to get back home before it got too dark out. I'll tell you what, we have a Garmin and it's a lifesaver! I don't know what we'd do without that thing.
I would have loved to have stayed all three days but it was still such a great experience and worth the 200+ miles we drove that day!
There are quite a few more photos and a video of the #44 coming out of the garage in my Photobucket.
The garage is definitely a wild place, even way before practice starts! Engines are running, crewmen are running around, drivers are starting to show up. You can really feel the intensity and excitement in the air!
(Spare part?? Where's the other half?!
)Of course I had to go see where Michael's garage stall was! His car wasn't in it yet (still in inspection?) but after a few minutes a couple of his crewmen pushed it down the lane and into the stall.
I never did see Michael walking around - he must have snuck in through the other side of the garage - but I did get a few photos of him sitting in his car.
After that we headed over to David's stall to check that out.
All of a sudden he showed up and was chatting with a couple people. Then before I knew it he was walking right toward me! He was so incredibly nice and friendly! I can't say enough about what an awesome person David Reutimann is - no doubt one of the sweetest people in the garage.
I feel so lucky to have met him again! Unfortunately Danni and I were so overwhelmed we didn't get any pictures of him - darn it! From where we were we could also see into Casey's stall!
We also had a couple of the #15 crew smiling and waving to us, which was incredibly amusing. The funniest part was when Paul Menard arrived they turned and said something to him and he stared over as well!
We stayed there for a while as practice went on but then we had to move because we were in the way. So we went down to a big clear spot and were able to take some really cool ground-level photos of the cars driving by.
We watched qualifying from the infield, which was pretty cool (it gets really hot in the garage during practice and I'd forgotten my water in the car, so we decided to stay out in the field where it was cooler). I wish we had a taller car so we could have climbed on the roof to get a better view! It's really too bad Michael went out first - I was so unhappy when he the the first guy that I saw out there!
We had to leave after quals to get back home before it got too dark out. I'll tell you what, we have a Garmin and it's a lifesaver! I don't know what we'd do without that thing.
I would have loved to have stayed all three days but it was still such a great experience and worth the 200+ miles we drove that day!
There are quite a few more photos and a video of the #44 coming out of the garage in my Photobucket.
