Daytona Week!

What a fun week at Daytona!! It truly ended much too quickly. We thought Zachary would be the one that would be fussy and grouchy when we first arrived, but too our surprise, it was Caleb. He, who for the last 2 months has asked, practically once a day, "When is the Racing going to start?"

The loud speakers were fairly close to our campspot, and Caleb immediately covered his ears. All he wanted to do was stay in the truck.

The announcers were talking about the upcoming Gatorade Duels.

They commentate almost the entire day!

Zachary was bouncing around all over the place. Helping his dad, and getting all the games ready to play. It took Caleb a few hours to get out of his funk.

Here is our campspot. Which actually wasn't ours.

We arrived shortly after it had rained. All the spots are 20 x 40 and numbered.

Some of the numbers were blended into the wet grass. The campground was pretty full already, so the guy directing cars told us "4 or 5 on left".

Well number 5 was open. We backed in and set up camp.

After everything was up, we walked down 3 rows (which had names like 'RedNeck Way' and 'Trailer Ave' ) to the fence to watch the Duels. Going back to camp afterwards led us past an empty campsite, with our camp number.

Oops!

Since we already had everything set up, we didnt want to move.

Luckily, when they came in the next morning they just picked our spot, which was the last one left.

Here is Jr. winning one of the Gatorade Duels. Here we are in our turn. Turn 3. Notice Caleb holding his ears. He wouldnt put in the ear plugs I brought for him. In the past when we have gone to the races, we have not taken the kids. My parents have always babysat, and Mikey and I get a little "ADULT" time. Since we don't have that option here, we made the race all about the boys. What a fun time we had! We flew kites. We bought a Daytona 500 Bean Bag Tailgate Toss, and played it day and night. We brought Calebs golf clubs and played a 'golf croquet' game. There weren't any moments that they didnt have something to do or see. People were giving the boys free stuff all the time! They got boxes of candies, and toys. Everyone there is your friend. We even had some guy come to our camp and give them a hand held TV driver scanner. This is not a cheap item either! We told him "No thank you" but he INSISTED and left it on our table for them. He said he'd be back for it tomorrow.

We never saw him again. Caleb finally let me put the earplugs in and we spent about half of the races trackside. It was incredible being so close to them at Daytona. In Phoenix we often walk down trackside and are actually closer, but just knowing it was Daytona made it that much more exciting! Caleb totally got out of his funk and had a blast! Mikey and I sitting on top of the truck watching a race. Next year when we go, we are doing alot of things different! We are going to be like the rest of the rednecks and build us a platform ontop our vehicle to see the race from. Alot of them even had their TV's up there! Our TV was inside our truck. Here are our flags. See the platform in the background? There were hundreds of different ways that people built viewing platforms. We got lucky with the spot next to our "spot that wasn't ours". The people behind us used it for a parking lot, so we had an extra wide, open, area next to us. We were able to have more room than most people. (and if we would of been in our true spot) They had the Budweiser Clydesdale horses there. Didn't get to see Jeff, but we did get to see Casey Kahne. If you pay close attention while you are in the infield you can often see the drivers being escorted in their golf carts. It was such a great weekend that we have already scoped out the spot where we'd like to see it next Feb!

No, Jeff didn't win, he didn't even come close....39th? Ouch!!!