NASCAR Baby

When I went to get my hair cut a few weeks ago the stylist asked if I wanted to enter a contest as I was leaving. Never being one to turn down free stuff I figured it was worth a shot, although I didn't quite catch what prize I was entering to win. Needless to say I was a little surprised when I got a call a week later informing me I'd won 4 tickets to a NASCAR race up at Sears Point. Neither Steph or I had ever been to a NASCAR race (and didn't have much ambition to), but we figured free tickets were the best opportunity we were ever going to get so we thought we'd give it a shot. And since Meg & Rob were coming down for the weekend anyway we had an easy time figuring out what to do with the other two tickets.

I won't bore you with a description of the race... luckily Sears Point is a windy, hilly track (I really can't imagine what is interesting about watching cars make left turns on a big oval for three hours), but it was still basically just a bunch of cars driving around and around. I think we had pretty good seats -- there was lots of passing and several minor accidents in the turn right in front of us, which I think are the things race fans are supposed to like to see -- and there was plenty of room for Evan to walk around and pick up rocks. Here's a shot of the view from our seats (Steph and Evan are on the walkway on the right side):

We were fairly worried that the noise would be too much for him (we brought along earplugs for everyone which we never used), but it wasn't nearly as bad as we'd anticipated. Evan certainly didn't seem to mind:

All-in-all we had a pretty good time, although it was a beastly hot day and there was no shade to be found unless you had bought extra-expensive tickets beforehand to get into the special pavilion (which obviously goes against our "we'll go if it's free" ethic). We were able to cry our way into the tent for a little bit by claiming baby distress (Evan was looking awfully hot and he was still recovering from his ear infection and cold) so we could feed him out of the sun, but we left pretty soon after that. Here's Evan getting some last looks before we head out:

So, I wouldn't say we've been converted to NASCAR fans, but we might go again if I can win another pair of free tickets.