Talladega, AL

What do Indiana, Florida, and Alabama all have in common? Give up?
Super Speedways - enormous races tracks to be exact!

My memories of automotive racing are fond ones. My grandparents lived in Speedway, Indiana, home to the worlds "greatest spectacle in racing!" As a kid I had been to several Indy qualification days, the race itself, and even had the privilege to sell candy bars for little league baseball to drunk fans after the race (would have made a lot more if I was selling beer). During high school I attended the first inaugural Brickyard 500 but with all of this past racing history somehow I have never become a avid racing fan.

This is not the case for my dad! Who would want you to know that NASCAR stands for "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing" not "Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks." From the pictures showing my dad kissing the start finish line, it would appear that at some point during my college years, my dad become NASCAR fanatic!! For this reason and this reason only I had him fly in this last weekend to head to Talladega. Apparently the only place on earth where it is kosher to invoke the name of Jesus at the end of a prayer after having belted out a Sweet Home Alabama - what's Lynyrd Skynyrd got against vowels anyway!? Since Lynyrd decided to be short on vowel's I will attempt to be short on words.

Our day in phrases:

"You can't buy these tickets!" - in answer to what tickets would normally cost
"Your parking space is right under your seats below the track inside the gates."
"The pits and garages open at 8." - we had passes to both
"Remember this when you finalize your will." - me to dad as he inspected Jeff Gordon's car
"This isn't racing; it's Talladega!
"I got a great deal on these 2 seats, $375!" - the guy sitting next to us
"Gentleman, start your engines!"
"Bump-draft"
"If you got it this far, I'm not going to stop you!" - the security guard in reference to our 2 over-sized cooler housing our lunch and tasty snacks, a polish sausage was $8!!

Ok, so maybe this hiatus to "Dega" wasn't just for my dad! After all our seats were the Presidential seats from which we had a bird's eye view of the entire track and the opportunity to watch 44 very loud stock-cars riding each others bumpers for 500 miles only comes around (the track) 188 times once a year! Dad, I guess this means your buying Daytona?!