NASCAR

On Thursday we were in Charlotte NC to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame. This wasn't a planned visit, Glenn had told us that when we were in Pigeon Forge, we were only about three hours away. Ed has always wanted to see this, and being that close, it would have been a shame not to go. I am not really a NASCAR fan, but anyone who knows my Ed... knows he is. This is a beautiful place, and what is nice, is that you don't have to be a true fan to enjoy it, I had a very nice time as well.




I sort of knew this, but didn't... in a way NASCAR began with moonshine... when the men developed cars that could out run the law. And from there began to compete with one another. The sport has come a long way from moonshine days, but that's quite a history.








It's a big sport, and it draws thousands of people to race tracks each weekend. It employees thousands of people as well. NASCAR has very strict rules that they keep to.. everything from safety issues to the conduct of the drivers and their crews.

What I enjoyed were many of the "hands on" displays. And the building and lay out of it, was "comfortable"... a lot of history and modern day were nicely combined.

This is how steep some of the turns are at the race tracks.... it doesn't look like that on TV

And many "memories" of the drivers and the contributions to the sport... Dale Earnhardt.. for those of you who might not know.

We watched this on TV, it was fun to see it in "real" life.

These cars were simulators, were you could get in them and race against other folks. Ed loved this (did it three times) I didn't try it, because on the practice simulator this was already harder than it looked.

I have to say, Ed did quite well, and won two of the races he drove in .

His "winner's circle" photo :)

We spent the whole day there, and it went by quickly. Ed was so excited to just know that he had the chance to see it.

But in just a few weeks, he will be "there" for real, when NASCAR returns to our area... and he goes to work in the wreckers. Pretty nice that a die hard fan (ED) has been able to turn it into a part time job......







after that, we decided it was time to head for home. A day or two earlier than we thought, but, we have seen all the things we had hoped, and I am missing home.....time to get back.