Friday, October 30, 2009

Day Trip to Talladega

Talladega. It is the biggest track on the NASCAR circuit. It is the most dangerous track on the NASCAR circuit. And since it is the venue of Sunday's Sprint Cup race, I thought it would be a good time to share some pictures from my day trip there a few weeks back.

The drive from Fayetteville, GA to Talladega, AL is just under three hours. My parents decided it would be a nice place to take a little family day trip since I happened to be out of school that Friday and had a Cross Country race the next day. We traveled there along interstate I-20 and came home through the backwoods of Alabama.

When we arrived at the track, we went in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame which is kind of like the visitor's center. It was late in the afternoon, but the tour guide was nice enough to take us and another group on a tour even though the last one of the day had already left... especially when he heard that all of us came from out of state.

Here are a few snapshots and captions from all we saw. The guide was an eighty-year old man who knew everything there was to know about Talladega and plate racing. South Carolina happened to be playing Alabama in Tuscaloosa that weekend, so he mentioned several times how they all were planning to have "Gamecock stew" for dinner.

In all of these pictures, you'll notice how dark the sky looks. That's because we hit the track just before the afternoon rain storm...




Those tire marks are remnants from Carl Edwards' airborne car back in April. I think it is kind of cool that they still left them there. Of course, we'll see a lot more of those by the time the checkered flag waves after 500 miles...



Here I am standing in victory lane. It looks so much smaller in person than when it is shown on the tube. I don't see how there's room for the winning team in addition to all of the media...





This is about the most picturesque scene I have for you at Talladega. There are even the Turn Four grandstands in the background...







Our 'Bama tour guide described this building as the place where the track owners discuss how to pocket our money on race weekend. All the dough that's spent on six dollar bottles of Coke goes toward that funky-looking space ship entrance...



That wraps up the picture show from my trip to Talladega. I'll try to write an edition of The Speeding Bullets for Sunday's race. Hope the racing will be better than it has been the last couple of weeks...

1 comment:

Gene Haddock said...

Cool trip dude. I haven't been to a race there but I have been to the museum. It's pretty cool.

Doesn't that place seem huge when it's empty like that?