A trip of "firsts" - part 1

I was trying to figure out the next best thing to write about and I think I’ll tell you about my trip to North and South Carolina last May 2012. This was my first attempt to meet Tony Stewart and I must say for a first attempt it went pretty well except for the fact that I did fail!

The thing to keep in mind with your bucket list is most of the fun and adventure happens while you are TRYING to fulfill the items!! So by failing, you make the completion that much sweeter! If everything in life were easy, it would be boring. Part of living life to the fullest is finding a challenge, accepting it and overcoming the obstacles to see success! Without failure, we could not understand or appreciate SUCCESS!

**Think about that for a moment and you’ll see I’m right**

I met my race buddy and friend Kecia in an environmental science class that we had together last Fall. The amazing part of the whole thing is it wasn’t until the semester was over with and we were chatting on Facebook that we discovered we shared a common passion for racing. Our conversations quickly turned into planning an out of state race trip. Two single ladies with no “dead-weights” can have the time of their lives!! Being single does have its advantages, so for now, we planned on exploiting our freedom in order to have fun.

After deciding the time period that worked for both of us, we discovered that Darlington was an option. Neither of us had been to Darlington and since it’s the oldest track on the current Sprint Cup schedule, we thought it would be neat to see some of the historical aspects of the sport. Plus, racing has its roots in the south and what better way to connect to NASCAR than through its colorful (and slightly controversial, yet exciting) past!


We decided to fly out of Detroit-Metro on May 10, 2012 on a non-stop Delta Connections flight to Myrtle Beach, SC.

We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Myrtle Beach and stayed at a hotel with a balcony that opened to a full ocean view.

That was a first for me! First time being able to see an Atlantic Ocean sunrise! I could get used to that view. I was expecting the smell of the salt to be overpowering to a girl who grew up around (and in) the freshwater of the Great Lakes, but it was not. It was peaceful, majestic, awe-inspiring and just downright awesome.

We arrived Thursday morning and that night we took an 80-mile ride to Florence, SC to see the NASCAR parade of haulers. (A little side note, we rented a silver Dodge Charger. PERFECT car for our adventure) Yes, we drove over an hour, to watch a 15-minute parade of semi-trucks. But remember, these haulers carry the chariots of our heroes so for any true NASCAR fan, it’s a sacred spectacle and one you should not miss! It’s a piece of the puzzle of the NASCAR fans obsession with this sport. One I have yet to be able to explain, but it’s a tradition that I’ll watch every chance I get!

We drove back to Myrtle Beach and spent all day Friday perusing the beaches, local bars (of course), spending obscene amounts of money on stuff we ended up having to FedEx home, riding the Myrtle Beach 200-foot Sky Wheel,

taking my first Dolphin Watch Tour out in the Atlantic Ocean and just playing the tourist. I’m going to mention quickly that the ride out in the Atlantic Ocean would have scared the bejeezus out of anyone sane, but as you can guess, most NASCAR fans are obsessed with danger and risk-taking. We were in a small boat in 4-5 foot swells and I must say, in retrospect what we did was absolutely terrifying and I loved every blessed moment of it! Skimming over and sometimes through (but never under) those swells, fast and hard was AWESOME. Ask me to show you the video I took if you ever want to get a better idea.

Saturday morning was the start of our Darlington adventure.

We decided to book a tour through MyRaceTravel.com. We didn’t want the hassle of trying to drive and deal with traffic at an unfamiliar track. Darlington is about an hour and a half or so from Myrtle Beach, so the luxury motor coaches took off from our hotel and headed to the track for the 7:00pm race. Yes, it was a night race! Night races are the best! I’ve been to many daytime races, but my favorites by far have been the night races. I’ve been to the .533 mile Bristol, the 2.5 mile Daytona track and now the 1.366 mile Darlington track for night races and I highly recommend them! The sunlight washes out the colors of the cars, but at night… at night they look like colorful burning sparklers at a 4th of July celebration. The worries of the world seem to fade away with the sun until all that remains are your heroes under the lights.

So anyway, we get to the race track around 3pm. I was bummed because I had heard Jeff Burton was going to be at the Chevy Tent at 2:45pm so I thought we would miss him. They dropped us off over in the Turn 1 & 2 area and left us to fend for ourselves. Having never been to this track before I had no clue where the vendors, hospitality area or even our seats were! We set off walking and eventually I heard Jeff speaking and followed his voice to the Chevy tent.

We watched him for a few minutes and when he left, his pit crew came out and signed autographs for us. I like that they do that. NASCAR is a team sport and all the focus should not be on just the drivers.

We meandered around turns 3 and 4 towards the hospitality area. Jeff Gordon was scheduled to be in the tent but since I've met him once before I wasn't terribly enthused to rush over there. As we got to the entrance of the hospitality area, we of course were clueless as to where to go. I passed through the check point and walked a little bit a head of Kecia. Suddenly I heard this quick siren type sound and this big black truck thing was coming towards us with light flashing and this siren sounding. I have never seen anything like it so I got off onto the grass and just stood there. The next thing I know, this truck, with the windows completely blacked out pulls next to me and when I say next to me, I mean I could reach out and touch it. It shocked the crap out of me and actually really pissed me off. So it pulled back by one of the other small hospitality tents and I was just going to walk up and rip the driver a new one for getting so close to me.

Suddenly, I hear the announcer in the Coca-Cola hospitality tent start to get excited because Tony Stewart had finally arrived. Yup, you got it. I was just about run over by the dumbass driving Tony Stewart to his appearance. On retrospect, if we had been five minutes earlier or later, we would have missed him so what are the chances? I set my mind to meeting him and came pretty damn close at that moment. Probably wouldn't have been quite as good as the parade lap was, but still... LOL.

So I stood back a ways and used my new 30x zoom camera to get a decent picture of him. It was my first time listening to him speak live and seeing him live. At that point I was an excited mess and was just thrilled to get the opportunity to see him.

After a few blissful moment, we walked over to our hospitality tent just in time to hear Jeff Gordon talking. Wasn't impressed because I was still reeling from having almost been run over by TS and getting to see him live. We chilled in the tent for a bit before heading down into the pits for a walk around. I'm used to the wide open, sweeping Michigan International Speedway and since Darlington is a bit smaller and more intimate, it was really neat to be down there.

They had staff in victory lane and they let you get your picture taken.

Then we meandered through the pits just absorbing and observing. It was pretty quiet. I had Kecia snap a pic of me behind Tony's pit.

A question: WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT BOILED PEANUTS? It's such a huge thing in the south that they put it on a race car? WTH?

Finally race time came and we headed to our seats. Holy hell! At Darlington you have to walk up like 4-5 stories of stairs. Yes, I said stories. I did great through 3 stories, the 4th I thought I was going to die and by the 5th I thought I was going to pass out. They have paramedics at the top, that should tell you something! LOL But, I did it. It took my 4 minutes to recover and it was on to our seats!

Here's the view from the top of the stairs looking down at Kecia standing in line for the elevator. Smart Woman! LOL

I sat next a really nice guy in the stands. Did I mention that my seat number was 14? Yup! That's happened quite a bit this year. My seat at MIS last week was 14 and at Eldora both times my seat number was, yup, you guessed it.... 14! The only bad thing is that their stands are literally metal folding chairs bolted to the cement. Yup, it was a good thing I had been losing weight because they were tight! LOL

The race was great but the pit action was even better! The pits were so close. So much closer than at MIS because the frontstretch was much narrower.

The race ended up with Jimmie Johnson winning. Disappointed that one of my two didn't win, but super glad for a nice race. I enjoy listening to the drivers on the scanner too. If you have never done it, I highly recommend it. It's as if you are sitting in the cockpit of that car with them. It can be a rush at times!

I think the moral of this FIRST part of my story is that during this trip I started focusing on all the things I got to do for the FIRST time. If you have never really done this, try it. Go throughout the day and ask yourself each time you do something if it was your first time. You will be surprised at the number of things you do new each day. Whether it's eating for the first time at a new restaurant, or smiling at a stranger for the first time or even taking a normal path that you walk and do it backwards! When you start looking at the world like this, it suddenly becomes a new and exciting place to live.

I think this is enough for the moment. I'm going to focus on my nieces bday party now and get ready for another week of FIRSTS for me. I'll start part 2 of this trip in a bit. You need to hear about my tour of some of the NASCAR race shops that we took on 5/14.Did you notice the date? 14! LOL That was an awesome FIRST for me too!

Part 2 will be along shortly.

Did you write your bucket list yet? What are you waiting for!?!?!?!?!?!?!?