The Queen City

This weeks Coca-Cola 600 (the longest race in Nascar) takes place in Charlotte NC. Charlotte is nicknamed the Queen city because it's named after young Queen Charlotte of Brittain (1771). Statues of her are rampant. So, enough history.

I arrived in Charlotte thursday afternoon, which is a day later than the normal schedule because the "all star" race was held here last week and 80% of the infrastructure was already set up - being leftover from last week. In theory, we could come in just one day before needed and make sure everything's working - but this is 'big bidness', so they need to make sure we have plenty of time to fix anything that may have arose between races.

Everything was in great working condition and by thursday night, we were ready for Sat and Sunday's races. There were NO events on the track on friday (which is VERY rare), so there was no reason for us to come in. This allowed us to spend friday doing whatever we pleased. I grew up less than an hour and a half from here, so I shot up to mom and dads for the day. Here's a strange coincidence - Jan's (and my) niece was graduating from high school friday night, so Jan was flying in around 11 am, so we spend the afternoon together at mom and dads.

We have an 11 am call time today, so I was able to sleep til nearly 8:00, have a leisurely morning and still get in a run. I started running again (it's been 15 years) back before Christmas when I bought a Nike+ system for my iPod that keeps track of your runs. I also downloaded a podcast called "from the couch to 5k in 9 weeks". The problem was that everytime I would start running again (I've tried at least once a year for the last 15 years) I would overdo it and it would injure my knees. I'd read online about this podcast that has you gradually getting into it by structuring you walking and running so that you built up strength and endurance without injury. Well,it worked and I got up to 5K without stopping (that's basically 3 miles). Then, I let boat trips and some work trips act as an excuse for not getting regular runs in. I can always find an excuse to not run and to start eating better - tomorrow.

This morning I was able to put in 2 miles and I have intentions - no, really - of running 3 times a week with little excuses. We'll see how it goes. This morning's run was very hard at first, but 12 minutes into it I felt the endorphines kick in and it wasn't so bad. At home, where I run is as flat a pancake, but here in Charlotte, it was a bit rolly - adding a bit more work to the feat.

The next 2 nights will be long ones. The Busch series race tonight will not start unti 8pm meaning we won't be done til somewhere around midnight. Tomorrow's CUP race is really long and we have to strike (tear down the whole system) after the race, so I don't expect to be done working until 1 or 2 am. I'm on a plane home at 9am on monday morning.

Jan and I plan to drive to St. Augustine (less than an hour from home) on tuesday for me to take the forsail from my boat to the sailmakers. I then leave on wednesday for 3 back-to-back races - getting home on June 18th

Here's the obligatory photos from the race track:

In turn 3, we were amazed that there's no perimeter fence around the race track here. Normally the entire track (at all tracks) have a very strong and reinforced fence immediatly around them to keep the cars and debris inside the track. This protects the fans of course, but also protects the drivers. It was very strange to stand less than 10 feet from these cars as they are passing you at nearly 180mph with NOTHING between you and them.



The area around the start/finish line