My dad and I flew down to Charlotte, NC this past weekend to attend the Bank of America 500. The race sucked pretty bad until a mysterious caution late in the race stacked up the field and changed the outcome. It did produce the best racing of the night between Kasey Kahne and Brad Keselowski battling it out for first, with BK2 coming up with the win. We got there early, to take in the carnival type atmosphere which was a lot of fun.
Danica Patrick was running a special car paint scheme for this race to raise awareness for breast cancer charities. They had a deal on at her hauler, if you bought one of her special items, you could come back and get it signed. They only gave out 100 bracelets to allow you to get an autograph. So, I bought this die cast car to get signed. You couldn't really get a picture with her as she was pretty rushed.
She was very nice. I thanked her for doing the charity work and told her that my mom is a breast cancer survivor. She told me that was good to hear and thanked me for supporting her cause. Here, she just finished signing my car. My dad was a little late on the trigger.
Donnie Allison was doing a free signing at the Sprint Unlimited Fan Experience, so we jumped in for that. Donnie won 10 races over his career, but was better known for his on track fight with Cale Yarborough where he took his helmet off and started beating Donnie with it. I left most of my cards at home, so I took the free postcard that they were giving out.
On the Sunday after the race, we went to the Nascar Hall of Fame and then to this cool little museum up in Mooresville, NC. It is called the Memory Lane Museum. They have lots of Nascar stuff there and some other cool old cars and sprints.
http://www.memorylaneautomuseum.com/
If you are ever down that way, go and check it out. What drew us in to going up there was we had heard about a driver signing there that day. It was well worth the trip.
Bobby Allison (brother of Donnie) was signing there. Again, I didn't have anything so I took the free postcard they were offering. Bobby officially won 84 races over his career and another 2 races that are still being contested. He seemed like a cool guy in our brief conversation.
One of the other guys that was there was Donald Johnson. He was the crew chief for Rex White in the 50s and 60s.
Geoffrey Bodine was also signing. He was one of the first drivers I followed in Nascar back in the early 90s. He was driving the Exide car which was the same sponsor on the car of Rowdy Burns in Days of Thunder. He had 18 wins over his career.
