NASCAR

Nov 22, 2006 by Jared Smith

My dad, my brother Mark, brother-in-law Stephen, and I all took the weekend and went to the NASCAR races in Homestead, Florida. I’ve never really been a huge NASCAR fan, but when I found out that I would be in Florida for business the same weekend as the final race of the NASCAR season, things just fell into place. My dad is a big NASCAR fan, so it was fun to have him go with us. I’ve spent the last few months catching all the races (thanks to Tivo) and have really started to love the sport.

The races were awesome! The cars look fast on TV, but man do they FLY in real life. The track is 1.5 miles long and each lap takes about 32 seconds with an average speed of around 170 mph and speeds in the straightaway of close to 200 mph. And to see them race just feet from the wall and inches from each other for over 3 hours was quite a thrill.

I have lots of photos from the races in the gallery, but here’s just a few. The Ford 300 was on Saturday night and the Ford 400 was on Sunday afternoon.

A four tire change and fuel up for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. takes less than 14 seconds. And to think that it takes Walmart an hour just to rotate my tires!

The green flag drops at the Ford 400.

Kurt Busch blows a tire in turn 4 and hits the wall hard.

Tight racing at 160 mph.

Be sure to check out the rest of the NASCAR photos in the gallery.