To say my husband likes cars is a bit like saying fish like water or that I like cake. I've been to more car shows in our 2+ years together than I ever thought existed and without fail, every time I ask Puff what he's looking at online, he tells me he's shopping for our next vehicle. I want to fault him for it, but the reality is that I'd much rather hear about the newest BMW innovation than The Ex's babbling about comic books and his collection of action figures. Ahh... the joys of being in a grown-up relationship.
I digress. This love of cars does NOT, however, extend into NASCAR racing. Yet, lucky for us, there is the Le Mans series. Puff isn't an avid fan, nor did he ever watch any races until recently. But there is a Petit Le Mans race that happens every year on a track between his mom's house in Atlanta and our house here in SC. And during a routine drive past the exit several months ago, he mentioned that "no one loves him enough" to buy him tickets to a race. Basically, that's code for "Be a good wife and take me there." So, I did just that. While his birthday isn't until November, I got him tickets for the occasion and this past Saturday, we buckled down and headed to Georgia for the race. Both of us knew little to nothing about what we were about to experience.
All I can say is that it was totally, 100% BADASS. There was an energy, yet the crowds were so spread out over the gigantic, meandering track, that it wasn't overwhelming. We got there about 10 minutes before the race started, so we got to see them tell the drivers to get into their cars and start their engines. We were overlooking the pit as they started the race... which was to go 10 hours or 10,000 miles, whichever came first. We were informed that during time trials earlier in the week, one of the cars had topped 204 mph. Not too shabby. We checked out everything from the pit crews (whom you could stand right behind) and then sought out the best place to watch the race and get photos. It seemed like I wanted to stop at every vantage point to play with my camera to catch the cars speeding past. I was definitely so happy to be using my zoom lens and the "continuous shooting" mode on my camera. You don't get to use that very often.
After about 5 hours, we'd checked out every spectator hill or camping area with an overlook. We had scarfed down grilled burgers that a high school was preparing as a fundraiser. We signed up for free information on car oil made from beef scraps. We oohed and aahed at the Audi display. We bought Puff a new t-shirt. We peed in 2 porta-potties.
And didn't get syphilis from it! Not that we know of yet anyway...
No comments:
Post a Comment