Kentucky, Or Ohio, Or Whatever.

Okay, I’m back. I’ve got a lot to catch you up on, so I’ll just go.

Last weekend we went to Kentukhio. Or Ohtucky. Point is, we were between the two states so much that there’s no good word. The first purpose for you trip was to attend the Kentucky Indycar race. The second was to do all kinds of fun stuff packed all into one day. We left home Saturday Morning and an uneventful drive led us to a holiday inn. There, the computers were down, but the staff handled check ins ably. We went to our room which was no more and no less the standard fare, rested for exactly 27.3 minutes and we were off to the track. The weather was perfect, but the shirt I was wearing wasn’t. I’d had to repair it, and the stitches were itching me. Probably because I used this fishing line thread. I used that for two reasons, one, it was in the drawer when I went looking, and two, the repair is in the middle of a pattern, so I can’t use any one color and have it match. SO, I wanted to go to target to get a new shirt (I hadn’t packed enough to change and still have clothes for the next day) and socks. Mine were wet. Eeew. I left target with a shirt, jacket, socks, skirt, and umbrella. Oh yeah, and conditioner which I’d expected the hotel to have but they didn’t. So, freshly clothed we headed for the track.

Jason had heard that traffic there was a nightmare, and I could see why. There were miles of roads all inside the track. Wow. We parked and headed off to try to find anything. We were looking for Will Call, and the Downforce tent. We found Will call, and after a brush with fear in realizing that the tickets were under my maiden name, we showed them my old insurance card, and were off to find downforce. No-one knew where it was! We must have asked 4 people before we got to guest services and we just got blank looks. When we got there, the best they could do was to hand us a map and say, I dunno, but you need to go to credentials to redeem those. We knew we did. We had pre-race passes. We got them FROM DOWNFORCE. Time was short, so we boarded a school bus that took us to credentials. It was a long ride. We redeemed for some turquoise passes and took the bus to the infield. We had given up on finding downforce.

We wandered the garages and saw everyone getting ready, and Milka running like a madwoman for the bathroom. Jason got some great pictures as the cars were being pushed out. My guy Vitor had qualified 2^nd, so I was really excited. Also, my girl Sarah was racing, so it was double. More on her awesome performance a little further down. We decided to try to go down for pre-race ceremonies without anyone else. We tried to take on the attitude of people who were supposed to be there. We made it! Now, of course that’s not because we faked our way in, but we did, after all, have the right credentials. There were two guys jumping ATVs in the air, and then driver introductions. There were quite a few women running in the Indy Lights Race, and that was cool. We made our way to our seats, and the race was about to begin!

It was a good, and surprisingly (at least to me) clean race. Very few wrecks. Yay. I like it that way. Vitor held on to the top 3 for most of the race, and at least in the first segment, you could tell that he was just playing with them. He had the speed, and was just waiting to show it. In the end, unfortunately, his pit position, is what I think, lost him a win. BUT, he did great. I cheered a lot. Sarah, however had an amazing day. Her car was superquick and she really handled it well. She passed Ryan Hunter Ray and held him off. She passed Helio more than once. But, the scariest and most exciting part of the day, was when she passed Danica. It was for position (I think, correct me if I’m wrong here) and Sarah pulled up beside her and they ran neck and neck for a second. Then they touched wheels. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. We all know how fond of the drama our dear Danica is. Jason switched to her channel. The following is a rough transcription of what we heard:

Danica: What just happened?!?

Crew Guy: Well, you hit her.

Danica: I hit her?????!?!?!?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . Sarah got around and everything was fine. If she hadn’t had a wheel bearing break at the end, I think she might have had a top 10 finish.

The Indy lights race was good too, but not as clean. More yellows, and a little crying. You know if I’d wrecked, I’d be crying too. I’m not as familiar with the drivers in that series, so you don’t get as in-depth a review.

The real nightmare began when we tied to leave. We figured we’d waited a lot of people out by staying for the second race. Nope. I think it took us 2 hours to make the half hour trip back to the hotel. Ugh. Next: EVERYTHINGPOSSIBLEINONEDAYANDNOWIMTIRED.