The Golden Corral 500, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hampton, GA
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Julie’s first NASCAR race (and Ron’s)!
It was a fine day for racing in Georgia, even though it was way too early to be in the throngs of thousands of race fans… Paul and Ron outside the speedway
9:30am – the crowds are slowing growing… can’t miss out on the FREE STUFF fair
11:00am – it’s a bit more crowded
The Orange County Choppers were in attendance – along with some of their bikes:
“Black Widow”
“POW” & the “Fire” bikes
Airforce inspired bike “Jet”and an F-16
Paul Teutul Sr. climbing the truck to throw Frisbees (sadly, we didn’t get one!)
Mikey climbing the truck
Backlit picture of Paul Sr., Mikey and other OCC team member
Ron checking out an Army Hummer (with some random guy who wanted to be in my picture!)
Driver of car #25, Brian Vickers (although his car was the GMAC/Ditech for this race)
Paul and Julie hanging out before heading into the speedway
Atlanta track: (we sat at the North Turn, Champions Grandstand, section 129, row 4)
All lined up and ready to go – pre-race, qualifying line-up
Driver “parade”, car #45 Kyle Petty
The crowd favorite, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Drivers 07 and 8
Drivers in their cars waiting for the legendary words, “Gentlemen Start your Engines!”
The pace car and the first lap
Another lap around with the pace car
The pace car is out of the way – engines full throttle!
Coming out of turn 4 – about 165 mph and gaining speed!
Here they come!
Flying by in a BLUR
Going into/through turn 1
Are we having fun yet? Around lap 220
It’s a rush to sit on the 4 th row from the track! Earplugs are a MUST
Here comes the herd!
The pits are prepared
Quick pit-stop – heading into the pit area (what fun seats we had!)
It’s a race! Who can get out the fastest?
It does get a little old after about lap 275… some of the crowd was leaving since Jr. wasn’t going to have a chance…
However, getting back on it after a caution is quite a rush!
Earnhardt Jr. zooming past
The LAST LAP – VERY close finish between Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson
GO Carl! From NASCAR: “The 25-year-old driver hardly resembled someone in his first full year on the circuit, hugging the wall and actually tapping Johnson's car as they roared through the trioval. Johnson's car bobbled slightly just a few feet from the finish, and Edwards slipped by on the outside to win by a minuscule 0.028 seconds -- about half a car length.
"Let me tell you, Jimmie Johnson is an amazing competitor," Edwards said. "That's the hardest I've ever driven in my life. I'm pretty proud of that."
Edwards completed a weekend sweep in Atlanta. On Saturday, he held off Johnson and Tony Stewart to win the Busch race -- his first victory in that series, as well.”
Doing a quick burnout (without ANY tires left!)
The end of the race – everyone heading back to the garage
Final standings
Lots of tires
Award presentation – look for Carl on the big screen
And that was just another day at the races.
