Richard Petty and Charlotte Speedway (10/10) (10/11)

This morning we are headed over to Richard Petty's museum and family home. It is located in Level Cross just a short distance from the park we are staying at.  We have always been a fan of the King and to see his garages and the house he was raised in is cool.

The museum has everything you would want to know about Richard Petty and his family in it.  All his trophies. This is just a few of them.

After watching a video on him and his family we went out to the garage where all his cars are kept.

These are just a few of them. The bottom on is a car his mother had restored for him and gave it to him on his 60th birthday.  There were also Kyle's and Adam's cars on display.

 We went to some of the out buildings, one of which is the original garage where the Petty's built their first race cars.

 This is the house he grew up in, sure wish they let you go into it.

 Once done here we head towards Charlotte Speedway for tonight's Nation Wide race.  Neither of us have ever been to this speedway so a new experience for both of us.  We stop first at Hardee's for lunch, they have pretty good hamburgers.
We decided to take the back roads to Charlotte to see the country side, this is really a beautiful area.  The fall colors are just starting to really show.

As the corn fields die away the soy bean fields are getting ready for harvest.  Soy Bean is a big crop in the south we see these fields everywhere we go.



We get to Charlotte early so decide to walk around their mall.  We are both so tired from sitting in the truck for so long.  It is 85 miles to Charlotte and there was a lot of road construction.  I am glad we are taking the freeway back to the park.
Joe never buys anything for himself so I was happy when he found some long sleeve shirts he really liked and bought them.
Once done shopping we head to the track.  It is still a little ways to get there and once we do Joe missed the turn into the parking area B where we are suppose to park.  So we had to take a long detour around the park to get back to this parking lot.  We are just getting general admission tickets and are in no hurry, it is early yet.  The race doesn't start until 7:30 and it is about 5:00 now.  We found great seats in turn four about half way up, we can see the whole track.  Then we discover after purchasing a couple of beers, we can't drink in this area.  So we have to go sit somewhere else while we drink our beers then go back to our seats.  Usually it is just one small section that is alcohol free but here it is the entire Toyota section which is huge.  We are just in time for the NASCAR Sprint cars to do there final practice for tomorrow's big race.  They have 1.5 hours on the track and are in and out of the garages making adjustments to their cars.  It was interesting to watch.  We will not be coming back tomorrow for the big race so I was happy to watch them some today.  Tomorrow's race is expensive the cheapest tickets that were decent seats are $140 per ticket.  YIKES!!! We will watch it on TV.

Time for driver introductions!  Kyle Larson is my pick for tonight.

Now let's go racing!!!!!

We had ordered us some headsets so we could talk to each other during the race.  They were waiting for us at the park we are staying at.  It is so nice to be able to talk to each other and understand what we are saying.

This was an excellent race, a lot of competition going on all around the track.  Chase Elliott is the car to beat at least right now.  He is the son of Bill Elliott.  Kyle Larson is gaining on him but just can't quite get there.  Then Kyle Bush takes off and leads the race and before long rocket ship Keselowski passes everyone and pretty much leads the rest of the race.  A few yellow flags and before you know it the race is over and Keselowski has won.  Kyle Larson came in 5th and Chase Elliott ended up 8th.

Now for the long trip back to Greensboro.  It takes us a good 30 to 45 minutes just to get out of the race traffic.  It is like Dover they don't keep the lights green so race traffic can clear out so of course everything grid locks.  Finally we are on the 85 and on our way.  The next issue arises when we have been driving for some time and have not found our exit.  We discover we passed it about 20 miles back.  So we had to turn around and head west again.  It was 1 am by the time we got home.  The race was over by 10:30.   We will be sleeping in tomorrow!

(10/11)
It is looking like rain, so glad this a do nothing day.  We have been on the go non-stop for the last two weeks and I for one need a break.  Time to catch up on laundry and cleaning.  Then watch the race tonight on TV.