NASCAR 2005 Poconos

NASCAR 2005 Poconos
Originally uploaded by nadzent.

There is nothing like a day at the races. Last weekend I went to the Pocono Pepsi 400 with my mom and dad. Ernie has been spoiled by our one-time VIP treatment at a race in Dover, DE and has sworn to never again sit outside in the hot sun without catering and closed circuit TV.

Anyway, the day was perfect. There was no traffic from CT to PA. We made it to the track in exactly 3 hours. An unheard of feat on race day. We were prepared to sit in traffic for at least 5 hours, as is the norm for these type of events. We took my moms Lexus, which is a big deal if you know my mother. She was sure someone would want to vandalize it, especially since it has CT plates (please...). Sometimes she is just too big for her britches. I drove into the City on the way back so that I could hop a Subway back to Brooklyn - the next day she wanted to know how much I loved driving the Lexus, and wasn't it so much better than anything else I had ever driven. Uh - no, not really. But whatever, it makes her happy.

So the funniest part of hte day, well there were two funny things, actually. The first was that right before they yelled "Gentlemen, start your engines" my mom shouted "Hey! Billy!!". Turns out their friend/Accountant had seats in the section right above us. He was meeting his son and daughter-in-law. A chance meeting 3 horus away from home.

The other funny thing was that in front of us were sitting 3 DAs from Brooklyn Heights. I wore my Brooklyn Cyclones basebell hat (see photo) and they recognized it. Seems they had been convinced by a co-worker to check out NASCAR. They said they stopped at Walmart on the way in from the City (we don't have Walmart in NYC, one of the last strongholds) and bought a bunch of NASCAR schwag. I think they each had at least one hat and one visor. They also had beenr coozies and a 36 pack of Miller. Two-thirds of the way through the race they went down and bought a can of Scoal Chewing tabac-y. They were so into it. Nothing like a first-timer at a NASCAR race. They were shouting and hooting, asking questions of everyone around them. One of them even borrowed a scanner form the guy next to him so he could listen to the in-car "chatter".

All in all it was a cool day. If you haven't been to a NASCAR race, I suggest trying it out. At least once. If nothing else you can enjoy people watching because I must have seen at least 25 pregnant men and one woman who looked like a man wearing a bikini.