Rainin' on Race Day

Right now (around 2:30pm), it's raining and the forecast is not too good for us to get the race in today. The rules say that if we can get 1 lap more than halfway - the race is valid. I'm really hoping we can pull that off. Race time is around 7:45 pm.

If we can't get it in, then we have to stay here for the race tomorrow and I won't be able to go home until Monday. That's a bit of a bummer after being gone for 2 weeks, but at least I should be able to get the first flight out of Richmond on monday and I'll be home around 10am.

This photo is of only ONE of the many parking lots where people have spent the last 2 days - tailgating.

Long, Long Day

The schedule for todays racing was (is) jam-packed. Usually the practice and qualifying for Busch and Cup races takes place over 3 - 4 days. This week, Friday alone had the practice and qualifying of the Busch and Cup cars as well as the nighttime Busch race (which is going on right now).

Our work day started at 7am and we don't expect this race to be over before 11pm.

The photo at the top is the helicopters from the fly over after the national anthem on the Busch race tonight.

From the Track

Yesterday was our first set day. We had a few problems but got most of what we needed to get done accomplished. Here's a few photos from the track:

From the camera posiiton in turn 3



From the camera position on the roof



My favorite driver's truck

An unexpected day off

The schedule had us beginning out set up on Tuesday, but the schedule was wrong. With this being a Saturday race (instead of the normal Sunday race), we were sent here a day early. The truck that we work out of, however; won't be parked until today (wednesday) and so we couldn't go to work.

So, instead, I walked around a bit and then worked on revamping the Just Fly website (a very overdue project).

A very very strange thing happened to me as I was walking around. As long as I can remember, I've had an incredible sense of direction. I always seem to know where I am in relation to other things. I remember as a child, my mom used to say that as long as I was with her, she could get anywhere she'd been before. To me, it's a simple thing - but over the years I've realized that it's not a built-in ability that other people have. It's not a concious thing, but I'm mostly always aware of directions (N,E,S,W) and I also view where I am from above - like a 3D map which is being drawn as I go. I also pay attention to what I see as I go somewhere - which is key to returning.

So, with this in mind, I walked a number of blocks away from the hotel and had lunch at a place I found along the way. Then I made a meandering walk back to the hotel - all the time thinking that I'd taken a path that I'd not been on before (so in my mind - everything should be new to me). I was walking along - mostly looking upward at the tops of the houses along the way because of their interesting rooflines. As I came to a corner I saw a building I instantly recognized -BUT it should not have been where it was. I was instantly so disoriented that it made me dizzy and I had to hold onto a tree to keep from falling down. It was an amazing feeling that has never happened to me - all because a 'piece of the puzzle' was fitting in the wrong place. I thought about it a lot and I figure that the way my mind registers this stuff - it expects to see (or expects NOT to see) certain things in certain places. It akin to rounding a corner in Richmond and seeing my house sitting there. It would not 'compute' correctly in my brain. This is what I figured happened in my head. Pretty weird stuff.

I met the rest of the crew for dinner and had a good time, then came back to the hotel and was in bed before 11. I'm looking forward to getting started at the racetrack today.