Pocono 500 - In Person!
Jess
RESULTS
1. Kasey Kahne
2. Brian
4. Dale Jr.
8. Kurt
17. Martin
19. David
26. Casey
37. Michael (1 LD)
The drive to our hotel in Pittson was very interesting and a little scary. We were caught in a huge thunderstorm that sent rain down so hard we could barely see. Thankfully we survived!
Unlike all my Pocono races before, it was already really warm at 7AM, fortelling an extremely hot and humid day. Using our trusty Garmin, we made it to the track in record time, admiring the window art some of the cars sported while tailgating. I don't know if we were just early or if attendance was down, but we were parked much closer to the gates than we ever have been.
First thing first, we headed to the souvenir rigs to see who was signing when. I was especially looking for David's trailer and was really disappointed to see he wasn't going to be there - I even asked one of the rig guys just to make sure. He said that he got back from Nashville late and that he also had some hospitality stuff to do. If my life was a cartoon you would have seen my heart break in two, shatter into little pieces and crumble to the ground.
Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but I was sad! 
Thankfully we had plenty of other drivers to keep us busy. When Mom saw that Patrick Carpentier was signing she made sure we planted ourselves in a good spot to wait! He was very nice to everyone, even a woman who seemed to be frightening him a little bit (she was saying something about wanting to hog-tie him...yikes!! 
). His accent is so cute and Mom couldn't help but admire his chest hair... 
Danni and I went off by ourselves after that from driver to driver as they were scheduled to be at their rigs. AJ Allmendinger was first up - he got a big cheer when he came out and he played it up pretty well! Despite the common knowledge that AJ is confident, even a little cocky, he seemed very shy and although he talked to everyone he signed for he didn't look into the crowd much.
Casey Mears was next. His line is always really long and as strange as it sounds it felt better to keep moving around than to stay in one place for long (the rigs blocked a lot of the breeze). I heard someone comment on his hair (I love it longer too!
) and he said that he was trying to grow it out. Generally he was much perkier than he was last year, which was nice because the last couple times I've seen him he's appeared nervous.
We marched over to the Miller Lite rig after that and waited for Kurt Busch - who was late, as usual! He got a loud roar from the mob! 
A nice man let Danni and I stand in front of him so we could actually see, but I wanted to hurt him later when Kurt threw out a bunch of signed T-shirts because he caught one that was heading right toward me! I considered climbing up his leg to steal his prize but decided I didn't want to get thrown out by security. 
Kurt, like every other time I've seen him, was awesome to everyone, and like all the other times is so awesome at looking and smiling at everyone who called his name. What a great guy!!
The last driver of the day was our fellow redhead Brian Vickers. He was quiet but friendly to the fans in line. Both he and AJ looked to be anticipating their good runs during the race and had an air of calm sureness.
In the meantime Mom and Jim were off meeting Hugh Rowland and Jerry Dusdal from Ice Road Truckers, one of their favorite series! Mom loves Hugh (the Polar Bear!) and he gave her a hug and she heard him laugh (which, if you watch the show, you know how cool his laugh is). He was very sweet and I wish I could have met him too.
Before we journeyed back to the car for lunch we checked out our seats: N6, Row 6. What a perfect location!! Right in front of Michael's, David's, McD's, Martin's and Pat's pit boxes. Nothing much was going on at the moment so we went and had lunch (and got some comments about being twins...not all of them innocent, either
).
Mom, Danni and I settled into the grandstands with our FanView and seat backs about an hour and a half before the green was scheduled to fall. This was when the fun started. I had brought my #44 car flag with me in hopes of catching David's attention when they drove past in the trucks during intros, but when we spotted a couple of the UPS crewmen walking down pit road we waved it at them. I was taking pictures of one of them and suddenly realized he was turned right toward us! This made us cheer and wave the flag some more and he ended up pumping his fist. That was so freaking awesome! He continued to turn and look at us as the crew got ready for the race. I wanted to kick myself a little because during intros he walked all the way up to the pit lane wall, but I was too preoccupied with taking pictures of the drivers going by that I didn't even notice until he was walking away!
I believe this is Mitch Lash, since I saw him dragging around the jack.
He was one cool dude and really made my day!
Driver intros were fun, but the photo-taking wasn't. The catchfence has these annoyingly thick wires running horizontally through it and it just so happened that I was in the perfect seat (and me the perfect height) to have that bar directly over just about every driver's face. This reflected in my pictures. I noticed that a lot of the drivers don't even look into the crowd...most just raise a hand and absently wave and some don't even turn toward the grandstands. McD was one of the latter. We saw his butt, which I guess isn't such a bad thing, but I would have liked to have seen that big grin of his. We didn't have any luck in catching David's eye, either, but he was crammed in a truck with two drivers and a camera crew, so there wasn't much room. Michael's driveby was really sad - he's always been very interactive with the crowd but this time he wouldn't even look. Out of everyone, the Busch brothers were some of the best and making an effort to pump the fans up. Kurt had a Make-a-Wish boy in with him and smiled at the crowd. Kyle was even cooler - he grinned wildly the entire time!
The race was long. And hot. I had my MP3 player headphones plugged into the jack on the muffs that came with the FanView so whenever the cars went past I couldn't hear a darn thing. And did I mention it was hot?
David was struggling with the car but when Ryan made adjustments to fix one thing (mainly issues in the tunnel turn) it made the other two turns worse. Ryan was fun to watch because he often paces on the pit box. The crew was great all day despite the heat (I don't know how they can survive in those suits all day) and although the last caution hurt the team a little, 19th is nothing to be upset about. There won't be any #44 Quotes of the Race since I couldn't record the radio chatter, but at one point during the brief red flag for rain, David asked for some water from the two crewmen coming to his aid on pit road. As a second thought, he said that he wanted them to run the whole way! They continued to walk - that is until Carpentier's crewmen passed them at a run. Then they broke into a jog.
It was depressing when Michael crashed.
I was glad he wasn't torn up badly but I knew he had to have a great run to remain in the top 35 since it didn't look like Scott Riggs was going to finish poorly. The FanView doesn't show live owner point standings but by the driver points I could tell he was in big trouble...
He has said that he's struggled at tracks like Michigan and I can only hope he makes it this weekend.
Other Highlights (since this is getting lengthy):
-Seeing Kurt run well was such a relief and even after he spun out he was able to salvage a top 10.
-It was really awesome when Brian was leading! I wish he could have won but Kahne was unstoppable at the end.
-Junior had a good day...it would have been cool if he could have pulled off the win as well, though the grandstands would have probably crashed to the ground!
-McD missed his pit stall twice, once as a result of being hit by David Ragan.
-Clint Bowyer crashed right in front of us. It took a long time for the safety crew to get to him and he had already gotten out, hopped over the wall and was walking along pit road. The photo I took of him jumping is hysterical because it looks like he simply vaulted over it instead of jumping onto the wall and then hopping off. I couldn't help thinking his crashing was karma for what he did to David at Nashville the night before.
I didn't buy much since I don't have a whole lot of money to spend on treats, but I needed some #55 decals and a #99 Nationwide sticker. I saw a tank top of David's that I wanted but it didn't come in a small. The lack of women's gear in general was disturbing, and the shirts they have are way too big for me these days even if they are a "small".
The prices of some of the clothing were ridiculous anyway and it's no wonder why fans aren't buying stuff anymore! I'm not paying $28 plus tax for a freaking long-sleeved T-shirt!
We didn't get our typical fan-manned fireworks because it began to rain very hard. Before the clouds opened up Jim was chumming it up with a group of people from New Jersey (I think three guys and a girl), who were really funny. One of the guys kept screaming, "Those aren't rainclouds!!" even as it started to pour! Like on the way to Pennsylvania, the way back was in more thunderstorms, but I ended up sleeping like a baby until about a mile from our house. I woke up feeling rather sick because I got a really bad sunburn on my face (not to mention inhaling people's disgusting cigarette smoke...yuck). I guess my only consolation is that at least it was an even burn, not the burn on the left side of my face only like in years past.
I don't know if we're going to be able to go to the Pennsylvania 500 in August, since Danni and I will be busy moving into an apartment up in Syracuse where we're transfering to college in the fall. I hope we can go because we haven't missed a race in a couple years, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
You can see more (and a bit bigger) photos on my MySpace, or if you don't have a MySpace you can see them on my Photobucket account.
POINT STANDINGS
1. Kyle Busch
3. Dale Jr. -145
16. Martin -526
17. Brian -582
21. Kurt -647
25. David -795
26. Casey -806
35. Michael -1020 (36th in owner points, -12 from 35th)
1. Kasey Kahne
2. Brian
4. Dale Jr.
8. Kurt
17. Martin
19. David
26. Casey
37. Michael (1 LD)
The drive to our hotel in Pittson was very interesting and a little scary. We were caught in a huge thunderstorm that sent rain down so hard we could barely see. Thankfully we survived!
Unlike all my Pocono races before, it was already really warm at 7AM, fortelling an extremely hot and humid day. Using our trusty Garmin, we made it to the track in record time, admiring the window art some of the cars sported while tailgating. I don't know if we were just early or if attendance was down, but we were parked much closer to the gates than we ever have been.
First thing first, we headed to the souvenir rigs to see who was signing when. I was especially looking for David's trailer and was really disappointed to see he wasn't going to be there - I even asked one of the rig guys just to make sure. He said that he got back from Nashville late and that he also had some hospitality stuff to do. If my life was a cartoon you would have seen my heart break in two, shatter into little pieces and crumble to the ground.
Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but I was sad! Thankfully we had plenty of other drivers to keep us busy. When Mom saw that Patrick Carpentier was signing she made sure we planted ourselves in a good spot to wait!
He was very nice to everyone, even a woman who seemed to be frightening him a little bit (she was saying something about wanting to hog-tie him...yikes!! ). His accent is so cute and Mom couldn't help but admire his chest hair... Danni and I went off by ourselves after that from driver to driver as they were scheduled to be at their rigs. AJ Allmendinger was first up - he got a big cheer when he came out and he played it up pretty well! Despite the common knowledge that AJ is confident, even a little cocky, he seemed very shy and although he talked to everyone he signed for he didn't look into the crowd much.
Casey Mears was next. His line is always really long and as strange as it sounds it felt better to keep moving around than to stay in one place for long (the rigs blocked a lot of the breeze). I heard someone comment on his hair (I love it longer too!
) and he said that he was trying to grow it out. Generally he was much perkier than he was last year, which was nice because the last couple times I've seen him he's appeared nervous.We marched over to the Miller Lite rig after that and waited for Kurt Busch - who was late, as usual!
He got a loud roar from the mob! A nice man let Danni and I stand in front of him so we could actually see, but I wanted to hurt him later when Kurt threw out a bunch of signed T-shirts because he caught one that was heading right toward me! I considered climbing up his leg to steal his prize but decided I didn't want to get thrown out by security. Kurt, like every other time I've seen him, was awesome to everyone, and like all the other times is so awesome at looking and smiling at everyone who called his name. What a great guy!!The last driver of the day was our fellow redhead Brian Vickers. He was quiet but friendly to the fans in line. Both he and AJ looked to be anticipating their good runs during the race and had an air of calm sureness.
In the meantime Mom and Jim were off meeting Hugh Rowland and Jerry Dusdal from Ice Road Truckers, one of their favorite series! Mom loves Hugh (the Polar Bear!) and he gave her a hug and she heard him laugh (which, if you watch the show, you know how cool his laugh is). He was very sweet and I wish I could have met him too.
Before we journeyed back to the car for lunch we checked out our seats: N6, Row 6. What a perfect location!! Right in front of Michael's, David's, McD's, Martin's and Pat's pit boxes. Nothing much was going on at the moment so we went and had lunch (and got some comments about being twins...not all of them innocent, either
).Mom, Danni and I settled into the grandstands with our FanView and seat backs about an hour and a half before the green was scheduled to fall. This was when the fun started. I had brought my #44 car flag with me in hopes of catching David's attention when they drove past in the trucks during intros, but when we spotted a couple of the UPS crewmen walking down pit road we waved it at them. I was taking pictures of one of them and suddenly realized he was turned right toward us! This made us cheer and wave the flag some more and he ended up pumping his fist. That was so freaking awesome!
He continued to turn and look at us as the crew got ready for the race. I wanted to kick myself a little because during intros he walked all the way up to the pit lane wall, but I was too preoccupied with taking pictures of the drivers going by that I didn't even notice until he was walking away! I believe this is Mitch Lash, since I saw him dragging around the jack.
He was one cool dude and really made my day!Driver intros were fun, but the photo-taking wasn't. The catchfence has these annoyingly thick wires running horizontally through it and it just so happened that I was in the perfect seat (and me the perfect height) to have that bar directly over just about every driver's face. This reflected in my pictures.
I noticed that a lot of the drivers don't even look into the crowd...most just raise a hand and absently wave and some don't even turn toward the grandstands. McD was one of the latter. We saw his butt, which I guess isn't such a bad thing, but I would have liked to have seen that big grin of his. We didn't have any luck in catching David's eye, either, but he was crammed in a truck with two drivers and a camera crew, so there wasn't much room. Michael's driveby was really sad - he's always been very interactive with the crowd but this time he wouldn't even look. Out of everyone, the Busch brothers were some of the best and making an effort to pump the fans up. Kurt had a Make-a-Wish boy in with him and smiled at the crowd. Kyle was even cooler - he grinned wildly the entire time! The race was long. And hot. I had my MP3 player headphones plugged into the jack on the muffs that came with the FanView so whenever the cars went past I couldn't hear a darn thing.
And did I mention it was hot?David was struggling with the car but when Ryan made adjustments to fix one thing (mainly issues in the tunnel turn) it made the other two turns worse. Ryan was fun to watch because he often paces on the pit box. The crew was great all day despite the heat (I don't know how they can survive in those suits all day) and although the last caution hurt the team a little, 19th is nothing to be upset about. There won't be any #44 Quotes of the Race since I couldn't record the radio chatter, but at one point during the brief red flag for rain, David asked for some water from the two crewmen coming to his aid on pit road. As a second thought, he said that he wanted them to run the whole way!
They continued to walk - that is until Carpentier's crewmen passed them at a run. Then they broke into a jog. It was depressing when Michael crashed.
I was glad he wasn't torn up badly but I knew he had to have a great run to remain in the top 35 since it didn't look like Scott Riggs was going to finish poorly. The FanView doesn't show live owner point standings but by the driver points I could tell he was in big trouble... He has said that he's struggled at tracks like Michigan and I can only hope he makes it this weekend.Other Highlights (since this is getting lengthy):
-Seeing Kurt run well was such a relief and even after he spun out he was able to salvage a top 10.
-It was really awesome when Brian was leading! I wish he could have won but Kahne was unstoppable at the end.
-Junior had a good day...it would have been cool if he could have pulled off the win as well, though the grandstands would have probably crashed to the ground!
-McD missed his pit stall twice, once as a result of being hit by David Ragan.
-Clint Bowyer crashed right in front of us. It took a long time for the safety crew to get to him and he had already gotten out, hopped over the wall and was walking along pit road. The photo I took of him jumping is hysterical because it looks like he simply vaulted over it instead of jumping onto the wall and then hopping off. I couldn't help thinking his crashing was karma for what he did to David at Nashville the night before.
I didn't buy much since I don't have a whole lot of money to spend on treats, but I needed some #55 decals and a #99 Nationwide sticker. I saw a tank top of David's that I wanted but it didn't come in a small. The lack of women's gear in general was disturbing, and the shirts they have are way too big for me these days even if they are a "small".
The prices of some of the clothing were ridiculous anyway and it's no wonder why fans aren't buying stuff anymore! I'm not paying $28 plus tax for a freaking long-sleeved T-shirt! We didn't get our typical fan-manned fireworks because it began to rain very hard. Before the clouds opened up Jim was chumming it up with a group of people from New Jersey (I think three guys and a girl), who were really funny. One of the guys kept screaming, "Those aren't rainclouds!!" even as it started to pour!
Like on the way to Pennsylvania, the way back was in more thunderstorms, but I ended up sleeping like a baby until about a mile from our house. I woke up feeling rather sick because I got a really bad sunburn on my face (not to mention inhaling people's disgusting cigarette smoke...yuck). I guess my only consolation is that at least it was an even burn, not the burn on the left side of my face only like in years past.I don't know if we're going to be able to go to the Pennsylvania 500 in August, since Danni and I will be busy moving into an apartment up in Syracuse where we're transfering to college in the fall. I hope we can go because we haven't missed a race in a couple years, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
You can see more (and a bit bigger) photos on my MySpace, or if you don't have a MySpace you can see them on my Photobucket account.
POINT STANDINGS
1. Kyle Busch
3. Dale Jr. -145
16. Martin -526
17. Brian -582
21. Kurt -647
25. David -795
26. Casey -806
35. Michael -1020 (36th in owner points, -12 from 35th
)
That put me into the fairly foul mood, which only heightened when pretty much everyone behind them pitted for fuel and tires. When the green flew, only 7 laps remained.
From the way David drove afterwards, he wasn't too pleased either, cutting down in from of Stremme and nearly getting wrecked again. But Bowyer's disrepectful maneuver paid nothing for him when Brad Keselowski's fresh tires overcame! In fact, it seemed that Bowyer's car really fell off. With David right on his tail, Stremme got right behind Bowyer and bumped him out of the way! Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I'll admit that I cared not. Besides feeling a tinge of vengefulness, David would gain precious points by finishing in front of the series leader. At the end, he was better than Stremme but ran out of time for a 2nd place finish.
It was a pretty crude thing to say, but what do people expect when you have an annoying, unprofessional pit reporter stalking you down after you've just gotten crashed by a teammate? I simply slapped my forehead with a hand. Of course, he'll get criticized for being immature and a punk. He'd also get the same thing if he denied an interview. It really is a no-win situation for Kyle. He'll get things straightened out with Bruan and Leffler I'm sure. It just sucks that this is another thing that stupid people will use against him.