Our weekend at the Pepsi 400 in Daytona

Steve and I had such an awesome time at the Pepsi 400 in Daytona. We took off for Daytona late Friday afternoon, arrived at the International Drive by the track in time for supper at a Outback there, then got a good nights sleep at a hotel about 25 minutes away, in a little place called Palm Coast. Every room in every hotel was sold out from an hour south of Daytona, to the border of Florida/Georgia. Thankfully I had made reservations a few months prior and also got it at a much reduced price since I had made them so early.
Saturday we seemed to have unknowingly planned everything perfectly. We arrived at a nearby Cracker Barrell around 9:00 am for a nice breakfast, and were seated immediately. By the time we left there, there was a 25-30 minute wait on tabels. We then arrived at the track around 10am and got an excellend parking space nearby the track, that was also going to be easy and quicker to get out of that night. We got to the Daytona USA, which is a big building full of all kinds of interesting, interactive things to do. We got out tickets for that without waiting in line and spent about an hour or so in there. When we left there, the line to get in was winding around for quite a ways. We then did all the outside things, like walking in and around the trailers that sold things, saw several of the cars that had been raced or were going to be raced and then when the heat got to much we walked across the street to a Friendly's for lunch. Again there, we were seated immediately and within 10 minutes we looked over and saw a line going out the door and they were taking names saying it was going to be at least 20 minutes or longer wait.
By the time we had our lunch it was time to start heading for the infield with our extra charged fan passes. Besides the race, this was our favorite event of the day. You were able to actually go the garage's and watch the crew's working on the cars for that nights race. Watch them bring the car's out of the garage's and get inspected in all kind of different manners and then we were able to actually walk on the track and the grass inside the track and walk up and down the pits and stand at the rope by the pits as each car was brought out and lined up according to how they qualified in preparation for that night's race. We saw a lot of really interesting things and it gave us a whole new perspective about all the behind the scenes stuff that has to go on before a race.
Then it was time for the pre-race activities. The drivers being introduced and watching them come out one by one. Then VP Dick Cheney was introduced and gave a very rousing speech. When he was finished a nice prayer was said by a local minister and then an incredible rendition of our National Anthem and at the end, watching, hearing and feeling 5 military F-16's go screaming over our heads and do some manuevers while fireworks went off. It gave you chills and made you proud to be an American.
The most incredible feeling in the world is when those race cars go screaming by you for 160 laps and seeing the speed and feeling and hearing the horsepower and the excitement of cheering on your driver. It was a big adrenaline induced evening. Even though Jeff Gordon, who did so well most of the race, was taken out by a stupid accident that happened in front of him between two other cars in the last few laps and was not even able to finish the race and dropped from 8th to 12th in the point standings. Steve and I still had a great time and are looking forward to doing it again in the future.