NASCAR Race Day

Race day! Here’s another panorama I took during qualifying on Friday. Today is gonna be 3x as crowded

NASCAR Has Arrived

The apartment complex in Larkspur where I used to live has a Marriot Courtyard hotel attached to it. Usually they seem to attract business travellers and the odd tourist, but once every year they would arrive late one night: big colorful trucks with glowing endorsements, numbers and somebody’s signature. I think I always knew that they were NASCAR haulers, but didn’t pay them much mind until I started watching the races more closely two years ago. Well, NASCAR is here again, and the trucks arrived yesterday evening.

The numbers seem to increase with every race, this year there’s seven trucks parked around the hotel. All Roush Racing cars are there, as well as the two Petty Enterprises cars. I dunno why I get a kick out of this – maybe it’s the fact that you could drive through all of Sonoma today and not see a sign of NASCAR, but the little hotel right next to where I used to live has so many of the trucks lined up. And there’s something cool about knowing that the cars that will be racing this weekend are right in there. Here’s a few pictures:

By the way, the camping ground around Infineon Raceway is starting to fill up. One more day to go!

NASCAR Is Coming!

Yes it is true, since meeting Victoria I have turned into a major NASCAR fan. No, we do not own any shotguns, RVs or vote Republican yet. We just like it, as do more and more “liberal” people from the blue states. Of course I pass Infineon Raceway every day on my way to work, where next week’s race will be held. 100,000 people will flock to the raceway, backing up streets for miles and miles (they got shuttle service from 17 counties this year, we’ll see how much that helps). Over the last week, the raceway has slowly been transforming – tents have gone up, advertisement panels been installed and portable toilets have been placed everywhere. Here’s a picture of the raceway as it looked today. The full picture is much bigger, but beware the file size: 1.3mb or so.