NASCAR

A couple of years ago Marcos Ambrose made the switch from racing Australian Touring Cars and moved to the US to try his hand at NASCAR racing. This year (his rookie year in the Busch Series) saw Marcos racing full time for the Wood Brothers / JTG racing team. Adam has been following his progress and what better way to experience a NASCAR race than cheer on the Aussie racing hero as he attempted to beat up on those US drivers.

NASCAR racing in this country really is something else. The fans really are fanatical, they love their sport and their driver. Marcos is racing in the Busch series, which is the sort of like the minor league for NASCAR racing, though drivers tend to drive in both the Busch series and the Nextel Cup (top level). There are 35 races in the season and on most occasions there both a Busch race and Nextel Cup race at the same venue. As such the fans certainly come prepared for a weekend of racing. A great number of them bring their RV (camper-van on steroids) and either park it in the race track parking lot or the parking lot of the local shops. The picture below is of a small RV and camping set up.

We went to the race with our friend Mark from dancing. Mark and his wife Kira are both huge NASCAR fans and had tickets to the Nextel Cup race the following day. Thankfully Mark came up with us to the Busch race as he was able to explain some of the rules and regulations of racing to us. We arrived in time to watch the qualifying session. Unfortunately Marcos didn't have the best of results (he put the car in the wall on his hot lap) and had to start from second last. That said it was interesting to see how they go through the process. It wouldn't have been 60sec after the last car had left the track that it absolutely bucketed down. We got drenched, along with everyone else at the track. When the rain had finished they had these cars with what sounded like jet turbines on the back of them trying to dry off the track.

The rain held off and the racing got underway. Marcos ran very strongly considering he was in his back-up car but wasn't able to come away with the win. It's certainly a crazy sport. At one point a couple of drivers had an altercation on the track and the next lap around one driver threw his helmet at the other driver as he drove passed.

It was a very entertaining day and I think Carol even enjoyed herself. I am certain we'll get back to watch another race before we leave the US. Hopefully next time Marcos can finish a little closer to the front.