Plain Ol' Hot

[I wanted a witty song title for this post, but nothing hit the nail on the head quite as well as what first came from my fingers.]

We went to the Sears Craftsman Nationals today. The new management at Gateway has gotten rid of shuttles from the back parking lots. Hooray! They've also hired a bunch of bleacher Nazis to keep us cheap seat folks out of the EMPTY expensive seats. Gateway is rapidly becoming much less fun. It was miserably hot - the sign at the entrance to the track read 99 degrees as we walked by.

Someone had the bright idea to water the track with one of the local fire department's pumper trucks right before the first round of Top Fuel. The first two sets of racers could barely peddle their cars before they lit up the tires. We saw four track-length burnouts. Hey, let's spray some more water on it, I don't think it is slick enough yet! Funny car definately outran Top Fuel that round. I think the track had time to warm back up by the time they got out there :)

Unfortunately, I got sick from the heat. I haven't had this problem for a few years - at least not since I met Dennis. He's never seen me like that. I think it was a combination of the heat and drinking too much water. I just couldn't get myself right, no matter what I tried. I wound up needing to go home by about 6:30. We only saw the first round. When we were almost to the truck stop, we heard the Top Fuels firing up again. I was not happy to have to leave. I really like the event. Nothing in the world compares to watching two Top Fuel dragsters make a full-throttle side-by-side four-second pass. The noise and heat and vibration and speed is just plain wicked cool. Seeing the final rounds at night is the only possible way it could be any cooler. I got overheated and missed out.

Before the racing got underway, they had a tribute film for Darrell Russell. I still can't believe he died at last year's event.