Start your engines and head to NASCAR, Feb. 25, 2012

The Nationwide. Go Danica.

The weather today is 25 degrees colder at 60 than the high-80s of yesterday, and windy. Joe, Verlie, Elaine and I headed off to the track to join 82,000 other spectators. Elaine had her ticket, but we needed to purchase ours. We ended up at the track around 11 a.m., buying scalper tickets. But we got good prices, and great seats for tomorrow's race, the Daytona 500.

Somehow or other it seemed like all of the scalpers were named James. Joe had made a call and we were to meet this guy named James. When we pulled into the gas station, we were surrounded by a bunch of scalpers. When asked if they were “James” they all said, “Yeah, I'm James.” Ha ha. We got the right one and got our tickets. One of the other “Jameses” who was actually Rasheed, was the one we purchased the tickets for tomorrow's race.

Loaded up with our hoodkies, jackets, headsets, gloves, hats, air cushions and so on, Joe, Verlie and I headed off to Segrave Section. Elaine was going up to her friend's area, in Sprint Tower, so we'd be separated for the race, but would compare notes later.

Corn dogs ... yum!!  Need sustanance to cheer for our racers.

We'd gotten into our seats, and were just talking and watching the preparation, and then there was some excitement four rows in front of us. Some young man, maybe 25 years old or so, went down. Folks around him began giving him CPR and finally the track emergency team showed up. They ended up doing a defib on him, and carrying him out. He was sitting up, so probably everything worked out for him. Glad to think that anyway.

Danica speaking prior to the race during introductions(lifted from the big screen).

Then it was time … the introductions were made of the drivers, with Danica at the post in the 43-car field. Since she was driving as part of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s team, they decided she'd take the outside as Jr. would then be behind her and they could switch off and draft each other. The cars lined up, and then the wild ride began.

After the introductions, the drivers are driven in front of the pit area so their spectators can see them.

The fly by for today.

Danica's car, Number 7, and my favorite color, lime green.

Jr. drafted Danica for several laps, and then she drafted him. It was exciting to watch the drafting going on with first this car drafting with one, and then another. Round and round they went, with the lead changing, cars dropping back, and others pulling forward.

In the beginning ...

Jr. drafting Danica.  It's hard to get a photo that's good enough to really see, but the Number 5 car is in contact with the Number 7 car, and it's amazing that they can do this at the speeds they're going, running up to 190 mph or so.  That's fast.

Then about 49 laps into the race, Danica got bumped and off she went. She missed the others, but her car got torn up pretty bad. She got to the pit, but the radiator and hoses were gone, so they pulled her back to the garage for repairs. She was hot. We had her channel on our radioes so you could hear her, and they showed some of it on the big screen. She finally got back into the race about 50 laps or so later, but was on the track at the end of the race.

You can see her car looks like someone took a can opener to it.  The damage was too extensive for repairs in the pit area.

This race was 120 laps, and there was again a lot of action. With one wreck involving 19 cars scattering every which way, the area near the pits looked like a racecar graveyard.

The last wreck had one car lifted and riding along on top of two others.

Cars were scattered all over the place, some damaged, others getting through the maze of vehicles unscathed.

But I was amazed at how quickly some of the cars are repaired. You can hear the air impact wrench remove the lug nuts, and see tires changed, and crews trying to pull the fenders out that got crunched into the tires. There's a product that I likened to duck tape, that is called Bare-bond. They used it in long strips to repair or “glue” the cars together, like we Alaskans use the duck tape. It'll fix most anything. By the end of the race there were plenty of cars that looked like they'd been through a demolition derby and sporting the trendy-looking tape.

The Bare-bond is put on the cars in strips that look to be 18 inch long or so. 

You can see the Bare-bond all across the front of the yellow car and on the red car as well.

The race continued with a number of cautions, and one red flag, where they stopped the pack at the super-stretch, or back-stretch. The race finally got to the last few laps.

Kyle Busch was part of the last big wreck (lifted from the big screen).

In the third major wreck of the race, involving 11 cars this time, the leaders were knocked out in the last lap, and one guy was in the right place at the right time, Car 30, James Buescher. Congratulations to him. Danica finished 38^th.

As bikers most of us are used to riding through and smelling everything. It's nearly the same with the races. You can smell burned rubber, burning cars, smoke, exhaust, and Bubba burgers, although I have yet to eat one.