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BizB
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Poconos Race Weekend
2009-06-12 |
We left Toledo bright and early so that we could get settled in and enjoy ourselves once we arrived. The drive there was pretty uneventful. We had the GPS to guide our way - not that we needed it for anything other than the last 5 miles. And it even failed us there. Apparently, there are more than one "1 Lake Drive, Lake Harmony, PA".
We stayed at a resort called Split Rock. It appears that this place is trying to make a comeback. I don't know what it was like in its hay-day, but they seem to be making a real effort to attract families and couples. Our room was nice enough. Nothing special, but nothing disappointing, either.
Saturday evening, we made reservations at Sunset on the Green restaurant - or something like that. It was a very nice restaurant and the food was really good. I had a pasta dish and Sig had a huge salad and a crab-cake (also huge). There was a balcony overlooking a practice green but we opted to eat indoor as we thought it would be too cold/breezy outside. By the time we were done eating, we wished we'd gone outside instead. They had the AC cranking in the main dining area.
There were lots of people seated at the bar and they watched the horse race as we enjoyed our meal. After that, they turned on baseball and turned off any interested we may have had in watching the television.
When we got back to the lodge, we stopped to have a look at a NASCAR car that was on display.
Right behind the parking area where the car was on display was the lake and lagoon. They have quite the setup, there. There's a nice sand beach, an outdoor bar area, and some docks.
On Sunday morning, we made our way to the track. The traffic wasn't too bad and the resort was kind enough to provide us with directions to the track. We didn't take the GPS because the directions said we were just a few miles from the track.
We parked and walked to the gate where our bags were inspected by Department of Homeland Security officials. Then, our tickets were scanned and we were free to walk around inside the facility. The facility is separated into three distinct areas. Furthest from the track, they have all the exhibits set up by the various sponsors. Among them, AAA had a big tent where they were giving away free gifts to members. Sig got a battery operated hand-held fan and some other crap that wasn't worth carrying around all day.
The National Guard and the marines both had areas set up. I think the Marines were just doing recruiting. The National Guard was pimping Dale Earnhart Jr gear and had the most freebee stuff.
Sprint probably had the largest area set up. That makes sense since they're the series name sponsor.
Amp energy drink also had a large display where they were letting people have their picture taken with a #88 car. Every now and then, they would put on a burn-out exhibition which was obviously not real, but fun to watch just the same.
Best Buy had a trailer with big electronics displays inside and out. Elliot Sadler, the driver of the #19 Best Buy car was scheduled to do a Q&A at 11:05 and we got there at about 10:50, so we stuck around to hear what he had to say.
He owns 83 dogs and 52,000 acres of land in Tennessee. That's like 82 square miles. He answered other questions, but those are the two that stuck out in my memory.
The second area of the three is the retail area. Here, each of the most popular drivers has a store set up out of a semi-trailer. They hock everything you can imagine - so long as you can fit a product logo on it. The trailers are all decked out on the sides so that you can find your favorite driver's stuff with ease.
Between the retail area and area #3 is the biggest toilet in the world. Between the Long John and the stands, all of the food vendors are set up. $6.50 for a beer. $3.50 for a soda or a bottle of water. $5.00 for a can of Amp Energy. Yup, captive audience.
We ended up walking up and down the length of the grandstands several times because, in my head, I'd remembered that we bought tickets nearest to turn 4. But, each time we walked down that way, the section numbers seemed to indicate that we were at the wrong end of the track. Our seats were in section NA. The turn 4 sections were labeled NAA through NDD. When we walked back to the center of the grandstands
there was a map that indicated that sections NDD <- NA were to the left... where we had just came from! We finally stopped and asked someone and he informed us that section NA was right in front of the start/finish line!
Wow! Great seats! And, we had real seats, not just stadium seating! This is nothing like what we'll have at MIS!
The fly-over was... awesome. As usual. It flew directly over the grandstands on the first pass. Then it circled around and made a pass headed straight toward us.
The guys in front of us were really nice. One was hurting bad on Monday, though. Of that, I'm sure.
We almost looked like we were having fun and enjoying each other's company.
After the race, we decided to sit-out the madness and watch people sit in their cars waiting for traffic to move. There were plenty of helicopters flying in and out of the facility. That's how the drivers get around before and after the race. They don't have to sit in traffic like their crews.
The guy in the white truck didn't want to wait in that line of traffic and he didn't want to sit around and do nothing, so he decided to make runs through a muddy area in the parking field. He ended up getting stuck to his axles. It's a 2-wheel drive truck. I couldn't help but think of my nephew as I sat and watched. He was still sitting just like that when we finally left. Though, the people standing around his truck at that time included several police officers.
Monday morning, after we checked out of our room, we went for a drive up to the area known as "Split Rock" on the campus of the resort. They have a beautiful view up there where they have built an observation deck.
On the way down, we spotted several deer including a mother and two babies. Aren't they cute?
On the drive home we passed several of the retail trucks headed for the MIS race where we'll see them again, tomorrow!
BONUS!
Yesterday we had a full-house.
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 Betty Boop Sun Jun 14 08:09:42 AM
What lovely pictures you have posted. I especially love the ones of all the young ones. That trampoline has certainly been worth the $$ you put into it, right?? POPS is sooo in love with Thing 2!!!!!!!! Me - I love all of them.
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 BizB Sat Jun 13 01:16:10 PM
Finally wrote the real update from last weekend just in time for tomorrow's picture-taking.
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 BigBro Fri Jun 12 11:21:07 AM
See what happens when you live in the real world for a short time, building a fire pit and deck. 
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BizB Fri Jun 12 07:55:02 AM
Wow. You're really behind in tech news. That was introduced at E3 about 2 weeks ago.
Here's a video of it in action.
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BigBro Fri Jun 12 07:34:58 AM
Kikizo has an editorial piece evaluating the Xbox 360's upcoming motion-control scheme, Project Natal, and discussing why it's a bigger step forward for interactive gaming than many people think. Quoting: "[Natal> accurately perceives players in 3D space, simultaneously tracking over 48 joints on your body, enabling it to accurately redraw your skeleton in real time as you move about. On a separate 'debug screen' in the closed-doors session, we could witness for ourselves the 'mind's eye' of Natal, visually showing how it completely understands where we are, how we're moving, where we are in 3D space, how far in front of my face my hand is, whatever. It can supposedly even track individual hand and finger movement when it switches into this more finely-tuned mode.
Now I can be as clutzy on computer games as I am in real life. Just great!
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