Day at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Nov 20

After a day of riding, my legs were amazingly tight and tired. Not only was I worried about being incredibly out of shape, camping at the speedway offered opportunities that were just too good to pass up. It turns out that the extreme cold that I rode in was as responsible for tight legs as my unconditioned state.

First thing in the morning we called about the tours of the race tracks that we had gotten a pamphlet for. The price surprised us, as it was only $12 a person, a great deal.We were told that there was a very large contingent of school children that involved the entire staff in the morning, so the 10:30 tour was out. I asked for the two hour tour that was supposed to occur at 1:30, and they told me that there was no staff left to conduct it, so I thought we were screwed. I had to ask, but they said the could do a one hour tour, so we took it. There was another couple there when we arrived, along with grandma and a grandchild in a car seat. Our tour guide was obviously pulled from management, because she alluded to her many other responsibilities. She also knew things that only someone would know who had been involved in the complete operation of the tracks. She was a very good guide, and we enjoyed the tour. Her enthusiasm for speed also was fun, as she punched the gas pedal on the van, and got us up to 80 mph in that thing (on the race track!). She also stopped the van high in the turn, on a 23 degree angle, so we could see how steep it was. We were sitting up pretty high in the van, not low to the track in a race car, so it did seem even steeper.  The look on Pam's face was priceless, as she is not used to doing such crazy things in a van! I think the entire tour made us both want to see a NASCAR race some day.

Posing with our tour van which later hit 80mph on the track!

Driving around in the infield - passing the fuel area

Infield looking at the grandstands

The checkered seats make it look like there are people in the seats, even when there is not. We were told that comes in handy while filming commercials.

Racing schools rent out the track

This school was going on while we were there

Back stretch grandstands

Fancy patterns created by colored seats

This is where the RVs park

Huge jumbo tron so everyone can see whats going on during the race

Racing school cars

Driving on the track

Notice the autographs on the wall.

Doing 80mph on THE track

More RV areas

Posing in the winners circle!

This is where the winning car parks for awards ceremony and photos

Kasey Kahne, NASCAR driver, rented out the dirt track for the night and I tried to get a picture of him driving around the track.