Once at the track Nathan finally got someone to come inspect his car so he could race in the 9:00 qualifying round. Well, apparently there are a few things required at this track that are not at others - the main one being a part of the safety belt that Nathan does not have. So, we and to rush around and borrow one and put it in last minute (which did not seem safe to me) to be able to make the qualifying pass that night. (We had to call and have a friend who was coming up anyway go get a new belt and bring it the next day or they were not going to let him run). He got his race done for the night and was happy with it. Then I finally got him to leave the track at 1:30 a.m. (he is such a talker) to head to the hotel - but first, he insisted on some Waffle House. There are some strange people at 2:00 a.m. at Waffle House, just sayin' :)
We got woke up at 7:24 a.m. (not that I noticed or anything) after that late night to start working on finding a seat belt for his car. Then we had to go to a speed shop for parts, hardware store for parts, gas station and Denny's for breakfast :) Then it was off to the track. They had to switch a converter out on the car when we got there to see if that helped his car any. I was a dang good tool girl if I do say so myself :) He qualified two more times that day and then ran a test pass also to get some kinks worked out. Then it was elimination time.
During the first round of elimination he took off awesome and then stopped mid-track. Everyone started running down there (which really made me nervous) and Nathan opened his car door and a bunch of smoke came out. Then a few seconds later he closed the door and took off again. Apparently, his nitrous bottle fitting snapped off causing the entire 15 pounds of nitrous to empty in the car with him! He could not see and it froze his driving suit! It even bottle broke out of the brackets! It could have been a lot worse, luckily he didn't wreck or get hurt by anything in the car. But, that meant his racing was over for the weekend. It stinks to drive all that way and do all that preparing only to have a part malfunction like that. That is really part of racing though - you just never know what is going to happen. One of Nathan's friends Ray Parsons ended up winning the race and after the weekend Ray had he really needed it - he wrecked his RV and car hauling trailer (totaling them both) on the way to the races.
I really love watching Nathan race - you can just tell how happy it makes him. There is just something about watching someone do something they are passionate about. Also, we have some awesome racing friends that make the experience that much more enjoyable.
The next morning we went to an early lunch at one of our favorites - The Cheesecake Factory! Then we headed home to our babies. It was a nice break from the kids and we had some fun adult time. We made it home just in time for a family walk - perfect end to the weekend :)
No comments:
Post a Comment