Off to the Races

This past Friday night, Dad and I went to the racetrack in Grand Prairie. Dad knows the guy who owns the racetrack and has been before. He mentioned that there were going to be sprint cars this past weekend and I asked him if I could go with him.

I haven't been to a sprint car race since I was in high school...maybe my freshman year of college about 17 years ago. Dad and I used to go to Knoxville, IA for the World of Outlaws national races. The racing was always good, but the thing I liked best was the fact that Dad and I did it together. When Dad mentioned sprint car races again, I wanted to go.

This was the first time sprints had been at the Grand Prairie Speedway, and there were stock and modified races as well. It's a dirt track with banked corners, and they wet the track down good...it was a FAST track Friday night. The stock races were ok, the modifieds were very good and the sprint car races were excellent, bringing back the memories of Knoxville some 17 years ago. It was quite an experience from the mud slinging up into the stands, to the noise, to the smell of alcohol that the sprints burned for fuel. I had forgotten that smell, but for me, that is what brought back the memories of "the good 'ol days" when Dad and I watched the races.

At the Grand Prairie Speedway, the pits are outside of the track, so there is pretty much nothing in the infield. Since my Dad knew the owner of the track, we got to go onto the infield for the second half of the races. It gave you a whole new perspective to the race, and besides that, you had to feel just a little important being pointed at by the owner of the track and then being led, in front of the whole grandstand, into the infield.

And as is true for any memory-making event, there has to be a "yeah, and remember..." part of the story. When we think about this Friday night race in the future, I know what we're going to say. "Yeah, and remember how cold it was? Rob took two jackets and was just cold...Dad took one and nearly froze to death!" And then there will be, "Yeah, and remember when Rob wasn't smart enough to go to the restroom before going into the (restroomless) infield for three hours!"

-Rob