Rain, Wrecks & Running
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, September 17, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I’ve been trying to get online all morning to post today’s blog entry. But now that most of the grocery shopping’s done, laundry’s in the washer & dryer, and tonight’s dinner’s in the Crockpot, I can finally sit down and type.
I’d actually planned for a different blog post today — one that was based on something I saw Friday. I might still post it this week, although it might have already lost it’s timeliness. We’ll see how I feel about it. Anyway, I’d actually planned something different until my weekend started. Then I knew it all had to change.
You see, I had a sports weekend. For some people, that’s no big deal. But if I said this to anybody who’s known me over the years, they’d scoff. “You? Sports? HA!”
But it’s true. And it was fun. It probably helps that I wasn’t the one actually playing any of the sports…
Friday night, it was a local high school football game. This is the high school MiniMe will be attending in two years. Everybody was anticipating a really tough game and a big loss, but our boys pulled it out and won! The buzz in the paper is how in the first three games, this high school has tripled their wins from last season. Yup, last year, they won ONE whole game. This year, they’re undefeated after their first three. Very exciting!
One thing that was kind of sad — it started raining. But that wasn’t the sad part. The sad part was we all sat with our umbrellas or colorful ponchos, cheering the rain. We’ve had so little rain in the past months, the rain we got Friday was actually something to be cheered about.
Considering we’re under Level 4 watering restrictions here (absolutely NO outdoor watering), it’s been nice seeing the yards greened back up again.
Next came Saturday, and the day LittleDude’s been looking forward to for a long time. Our little county has its own dirt track speedway, and on Saturday nights, you can hear the races from our driveway. This has driven LittleDude nuts. He’s been dying to go out and watch the races. He even told SoundGuy the other day that he wished he was older. Why? So he could start his racing career, of course!
So Saturday, we load the kids into the truck and headed about 6 minutes from the house to the dirt track speedway (Dirt Track Racing at it’s [sic] best!) We got there at 7:30pm and got to see most of the classes’ qualifying runs. Those were interesting, but the real fun started with the races.
With the very first race, the flagman signaled to the drivers the race would start with the next lap, but then changed his mind for some reason. Unfortunately, not all the drivers got the message. I’ll bet you can imagine the mess that resulted in!
There was one scary wreck — one driver smacked the wall pretty hard. Not head on, but still front end. The complete stillness (not including the cars still racing) that followed was eerie. For a few seconds, everybody on the track froze. Then everybody in the pit’s mind seemed to start working at the same time. Suddenly everybody was running for the car still up against the wall. When there were no signs of movement from the driver, the announcer started screaming over the P.A. for the ambulance.
This story has a happy ending. The driver was fine, got out of his car on his own steam. His car was towed from the track and the ambulance went back and parked in the pits.
After the first two races, they had a little fun for the kids. They brought all the kids down onto the track, then — are you ready for this? — released a greased and muddy pig for the kids to chase and catch.
And LittleDude was right up front.
Of course, as soon as he realized how close he was to that greasy, dirty pig, he backed off. I don’t think he was afraid of the pig, I think he just wasn’t sure of how to catch the darned thing (thank goodness!).
The final race — I think it was the late model class — was the most enjoyable for me. The cars were faster, louder, and you could feel the rumble of their engines deep in your chest. I could’ve done without all the dirt in the air, though. That lovely red Georgia dirt that settles onto everything and turn it orange.
In my case, it was getting into my eyes, messing with my contacts, and making it hard to see.
The final day of my sports weekend was yesterday. MiniMe had her first regular season soccer game. And the season did not get off to a good start. Let’s just say I spoke to the team manager earlier today (I maintain the team’s website) and she let me know that the coaches will be instituting some major changes. The girls ain’t gonna be too happy. But fingers crossed it’ll result in a more focused team.
At least I got to exercise my photography chops during the game. Took lots of pictures, and have been processing them to upload to the team gallery.
I wish I’d brought a camera with me on Saturday night. That reminds me, I’m going to try to call the track and find out what their camera policy is.
Anyway, that was my weekend. We had more fun than we’ve had in a while. What about you? How did you spend your weekend?
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Teresa —
Hope you’re feeling better!