A Work Week at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte

I've gotten some feedback about resuming the blog and it seems at least a couple of people are reading it, so I think I'll try to continue it's revival.

This week, I've been working in Charlotte NC for the Coca-Cola 600 which is the longest slog of a race in NASCAR.   I've worked it many times in the past and it seems it will never end while it's going on.  I've not quite figured out who really wants to endure a 600 mile race - other than the broadcaster (the people who pay my salary) - so that they can run more commercials (and keep me employed).

Like usual, I flew in on Tuesday and checked into the Hilton in the UNC-C area.

Outside the Charlotte Airport is this statue of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Charlotte is known at the Queen City.

This was the view on Friday morning from my hotel room window.
The Charlotte Motor Speedway is on the horizon just to the left of the sun.

Because of the All-Star Race which took place last week here at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, most of our equipment was already in place, we just had to make some minor adjustments to our field equipment and hook up to the newly arriving ESPN production trucks - since they didn't have to be onsite last week - the All Star Race being a Fox product.

So we put in a bit of work on Wednesday and I headed to Winston-Salem for the evening to have dinner with my mom and dad (and Jan who had flown in for 2 days to visit her dad in Rural Hall).

Thursday had us working a long day of practices and Qualifying, but Friday was a 'dark day' on the track, so we ended up having the majority of the day off.

To keep from being bored, I located a place to rent a motor boat on Lake Norman and a few of us went out for an afternoon of cruising the lake.  It was a really fun time and we've decided to try to make it an annual outing.

Rusty, Jason and Myself onboard during our boating on Lake Norman.  Joe took the photo

So now, I'm sitting at my work station waiting for the race to start.  We'll get back to the hotel probably around 2 am and I'll fly home tomorrow morning for 2 weeks off.  

Jan and I plan to take SERENITY out for a few days during my time home, then it's off to Michigan and Sonoma for 2 weeks in a row of NASCAR fun.

Registering Camera 3 on Sunday morning

Waiting on the race start from my point-of-view.