Nascar weekend 2010 was such a blast! We weren't sure if bringing Ellie would make the trip more fun or more of a pain. She was well-behaved most of the time and we had a good time watching her react to the race cars going past. We didn't regret bringing her along one bit. The only thing we thought was a little bit ridiculous is that for both races, Ellie was required to have a paid ticket. We ended up buying her the cheapest tickets we could find just so she could get in and she sat on someone's lap the whole time.
Qualifying for the Shelby 400 was on Friday, February 26th. Basically, each car gets two laps to get the fastest time and determine their pole position for Sunday's race. Ellie was hilarious watching the cars go by. As they came around turn four, Ellie would keep her eyes on the car and follow it with her whole head as it passed. She would then follow with something like "whoa" or "ooh" I wish we had gotten video of this. It was so funny. We also walked around outside of the grandstands through all of the trailers to find new Nascar gear.
We had to choose a car for Ellie. Weston and I chose our cars five years ago the very first (and only other) time we went to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Weston's driver is Kevin Harvick-chosen at first because he drove the Reese's car five years ago. Now he drives the Shell/Penzoil car most of the time. My driver is Kyle Busch- chosen at first because I liked the Tony the Tiger Kellogg's car five years ago. Now he drives the M&M's car most of the time. Kyle Busch is also my mom's driver but only because she cheers for anyone who drives the M&M's car. Dad's driver has always been Jeff Gordon. Jimmy and Rylee needed drivers too. Jimmy decided on the "GoDaddy.com" car driven by Mark Martin. Rylee chose Jimmy Johnson who drives the Lowe's car. We decided Ellie needed to cheer for the Clint Bowyer in the Cheerios car.
Rain threatened to postpone Saturday's race- the Sam's Towns 300. As long as they were able to complete half of the race, the winner would be whoever was out front when they called the race. It was pretty ugly and cold that day, but we were able to watch the entire race without the rain ruining our day. My dad rented a race scanner with a little tv screen for the weekend. Ellie wanted to hold the little tv and push all the buttons. We were cold, but we had a lot of fun. On the way back to St. George, about eighteen miles away from Mesquite the entire freeway was stopped for miles. After sitting for a half hour, we finally starting moving very very slowly and eight miles later found that the problem was a pickup had lost its trailer or something. Saturday was also my dad's birthday. The lasagna we had planned to make at the condo was not going to happen, so my dad ordered pizza and then we had his favorite cake- German Chocolate. Happy Birthday Dad!
Sunday's weather was more like what Las Vegas should feel like. Rylee's driver won the race, but at one point, all of our drivers were in the top ten positions for quite a few laps. My driver (and mom's) was penalized for driving to fast on pit road and ended up fifteenth. Weston's driver took second, Dad's driver third, Jimmy's fourth, Ellie's eighth.
We stayed until Tuesday afternoon. Monday we got to do a little shopping while the men played golf and Tuesday we got to see Jimmy's office. It was quite a vacation for me. Ellie didn't want to see her mommy much. She wanted Rylee (Eye-lee) and Grandma a lot. I felt a little guilty, but it was a true vacation. We loved spending so much time with our family, especially Jimmy and Rylee. We only get to see them every month or two. We really missed Kristan. Maybe she'll come next time. Happy Birthday to my little sis too!
