Father's day on the raceway

It's been quite sometime since I last blogged. Just been very busy with everyday life and I have so much to talk about. Our father's day experience was sitting in my "My Documents"
for quite sometime now so I thought let me spring back to blogging life with that. So here it is.....

Well, I thought I had a very well planned Father's Day (june 21st). Least did I know that the lack of mishap could also make a day boring.....literally.

I planned our day around the NASCAR Race in Sonoma at the Infineon Raceway. Got the NASCAR Race tickets, planned the dinner out after the race, packed the backpacks with sunscreen, sun glasses, ear plugs, caps, lots of water.......oh and the tickets :) Since my company was sponsoring one of the car in the race we were invited for a photo shoot opportunity with the driver Bobby Labonte and the garage tour.

We were very excited and I was so sure that it will be a great day. Plan was to be there by 11:00 for the photo shoot, then do the garage tour at 12:00 and then watch the opening ceremony of the race at 1:30 and the race from 2:00. All we had to do was be there by 11:00 and the schedule would just fall in place.

So much for the plan of leaving home by 9:00, we only started at 9:45 only to realize that we were out of gas. So the starting time got postponed to few minute to 10:00. Fortunately, we didn't hit any traffic on the way coz we were still pretty early per the race schedule. Unfortunately though, the line to the parking we were in was going to the parking which was the farthest to our seating area. We were still in the line to the parking at 10:50 and we knew the photo shoot opportunity was not happening. Not much harm done though. We are not a die-hard fans of Bobby Labonte so missing the photo opportunity didn't really do much to our race excitement. When we reached our parking lot, we saw a long line to take the shuttle to our seating area from the place. So we decided I should get down and stand in the line while daddy parks the car. So I and my little one, we joined the line to the shuttle and were waiting for daddy to join. And the waiting got a bit too loooooong coz daddy got out of the parking area from different side and couldn't figure out where we were. So for next 30 minutes we were lost and to top the drama, I picked up the wrong backpack, so my cell phone was also with daddy...{sigh}. The guy next to me was nice to lend me his cell phone and we had a family re-union in 15 more minutes.

By the time we took our shuttle it was 12:35 already so there goes the garage tour opportunity. Still no dent on our excitement to watch the race. After two shuttles and one golf cart ride we were at our seating place and the first thing that came to our mind was.....we need to eat! and we did. We were in the nick of time as the opening ceremony was about to start and the air show had started. There were planes and choppers hovering on our head doing awesome tricks, emitting American flag colors, followed by fire works, sky divers, National Anthem, salute from tanks and fighter planes flying very low right above our head. AWESOME....BLOSSOM!!!!

And then the REAL thing started....THE RACE!! They took couple of laps at normal speed, and the third lap was VRRRRROOOOMMMMMMMMM......so loud, so fast, so thrilling...it was amazing. After few laps though, our excitement kinda started to die down for the mere reason that there so no accident or even a minor mishap that we could be the first hand spectator to. Well there weren't many mishaps anyways and the very few that happened could not be seen from our seating area. We had pretty good seating though, with the longest (and straight) of the race road in the view. But I suppose most accidents happen on the turns. Something we learnt for the next time.

A lot happened the whole day, but our excitement was dampened by the not happening of any mishap during the race. We could not take it after around 25 laps and decided to head back. We did some photo shoot with the race cars on display and checked out the trucks which carry the race cars. The daddy sneaked out to get the racing experience up close from a small opening around the exhibition area where the divider /separator was very close to the raceway. On our way back to our parking-lot we over-heard many other families talking about the no-mishap race and that how disappointing it was. Guess, we are not the only people with twisted mind in this world :)

The dinner plan was in San Francisco and we loved everything about the food. And then we headed back home, everyone tired and exhausted, ready to crawl back in the bed.

Overall the day was not that bad and for both of us it was the first time we went to a NASCAR race, well any motor race for that matter. But will I go again, I don't think so. I'd rather watch it in the comfort of my home. Not sure if it would be the same for the daddy though. I still have to ask...