A friend of a friend got me a "press pass" to Talledega speedway for this weekend's fun and festivities! Unrestricted access to the pit area, garage and media areas. Life is good! The digital camera is going- just got back from buying another memory card. I will post some of the good ones.

Way to go Cooter! Have a great time. I was thinking how loud it would be and to take ear protection, then I remembered you are a teacher so your ears are broken in!

Hey Man...get me a picture of Bobby LaBonte in his garage with his car or something......Lucky Devil

Cooter, ill pay you 2 bucks for your tickets.

Have a great time out there, its one of those once in a lifetime chances. While you take your digital camera, also take a plain old camera, and bring a lot of rolls with you. Hey can you steal me a nascar wheel for a souvenier? I saw a trick that they put like a silicon glue on the nuts so they stick to the wheels, for the fast tire changes. Take notice to the things they do their and share your experience with us.

Be safe out there and i see a lot of tire changers get run over.

And bring an extra napkin if you tend to drool like me.

A lot of rain today- but I did get some great pictures in the garage area. But, my computer died this morning, so I pulled the old server out of the closet, swapped in the hard drive from the dead computer and now have a machine up and running again. The only problem is the server board only has one ISA slot and my modem fills that one. My memory card reader is also an ISA card, so I cant access the pictures yet. This sucks! I will figure out something, until then I will just post this one pic that was taken yesterday.

Great day today! NO MORE RAIN!!!! The IROC race was great. I only got run off of pit road twice, something about spectators too close during the command to start engines. Another good picture:

Thanks Cooter, Ain't that one bad fast green Poncho ? Go PONTIAC...Go Team GIBBS...Go Bobby LaBonte...

Did somebody say LaBonte????

Well, after a great 3 days of hanging out in the garage area of Talledega, I learned a few things.
A lot of the drivers and crews are really buttholes! I am still in shock over the behavior of some of these "professionals". This was a once in a lifetime chance for me to be where I was, and I am SO dissappointed by the actions of some of those guys. My sister was yelled at by Tony Stewart and some guy on his P/R staff for wanting to take his picture and no, we were not invading any privacy or getting in their way. Ward and Jeff Burton have the manners of a jackass. Daryl Waltrip went out of his way to be a turd. I liked all of those guys, and I know that some of you will not agree, but after what I saw and heard them doing, I dont care a thing for them anymore. On the bright side, I met some of the nicest most decent people ever at the speedway. Kyle Petty was great to chat with. NASCAR inspecter Gary Nelson talked my ears off. Dick Trickle offered to share a smoke on the way to the garage. Many of the IROC support guys took time to talk and share experiences with us. Hank Parker Jr. turned out to be pretty decent to talk to. Even as busy as Bobby LaBonte and Jeff Gordon were, they took time to chat for a minute or two. The Dupont team never got tired of us hanging around. I caught Ray Everham coming out of the restroom and got an autograph on my shirt, a pit road picture with Robert Yates, and then my last mistake of the day: I took a chance that maybe Tony Stewart was having a bad day the day before. So I walked down to where he was getting strapped into his car and tried to get a picture of him and the car. Some woman unparked her self from the front of the car and started waving her hands in my face yelling "NO MORE!! NO MORE!!! WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!!" Well, excuse me for admiring the man, but dont worry- It wont happen again!

I guess they all can't be Southern Gentilmen.Glad to hear the that the guy who drives that mean green Pontiac was a decent fellow.

Glad to hear about Jeff Gordon and the DuPont team being approachable. I'm a fringe NASCAR fan but always thought the fans were much too tough on him. Anyway, I was glad to see him get back on track again. Looks like a great trip & great pics!

Thanks for sharing your stories with us, Cooter. It's sad, but a lot of racers get so full of themselves that they end up being total dicks. I too am glad to hear Gordon and Labonte are nice guys in person. I'm not surprised Stewart is an ass.

There are plenty of jerks on the CART/IRL circuits, but one guy who is really down-to-earth is Al Unser Jr. He genuinely loves his fans and if you catch him when he's not busy, he'll talk your ear off. I can't wait to go see him kick some butt at Indy qualifying 5/20. I will die an Unser fan!