Friday 22nd May
Yet another very early start as the alarm clock rang at 6am and it was time to start the race weekend in earnest. A delicious complimentary breakfast was on offer considering of eggs, bacon, potato, grits, sausage, toast, buns, fresh fruit and more.
I had to be down in the lobby for 7:15am to meet our tour guide Shane who would be taking us on our tour around the Charlotte area to view the race shops and factories for many of the big NASCAR race teams who are based in the area.
Got chatting to some really nice people whilst waiting, it was great to be in the company of like minded people. Had a nice chat about drivers we liked/didn't like and and other races we had been to.
There would be a coach load on the tour today. After a few minutes we saw some others head out to the roadside where the coach was parked.
As I stepped onto the coach I was looking for a place to sit where I saw this woman sitting near the front... I thought hang on a minute I recognise her, I am sure she was on the tour that I did last year at Daytona. I thought to hell with looking like an idiot so I asked her 'were you on the Daytona tour last year?' Low and behold she said 'Yes I was... Hey, I recognise you, you're the guy from England right?'..... What a coincidence... That we should both pick to go to the same race, with the same tour company and at the same hotel! Felt like a bizarre dream. Speaking to my mum she suggested that I invite her over to use the hot tub but bearing in mind she is probably the same age as my mother I do not think that will be happening thank you very much!
Anyway back on topic. We were on the road at 7:30am and soon up to our first stop, Joe Gibbs Racing. This was a fairly small place which is quite suprising considering they are one of the top teams in the sport. They had show cars for Carl Edwards, Denny Hamiln, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch. We could also watch the team preparing race cars for upcoming races. Each team will have several race cars they are preparing for different tracks that they go to.
Like all the race shops they are very much out of town and in a countryside setting, all within a 50 mile radius of Charlotte.
Next we moved on to Jr Motorsports, home of Dale Earnhardt Jr's race team. We were lucky enough to be given a free guided tour of this race shop which means we got to go onto the shop floor and get a great insight into the procedures the team goes through to get each car prepared for a race weekend. We saw the area where they set the card suspension settings, do their engine tuning, make the body panels and even saw the paint booth where they spray the cars with their chosen colours. We saw them preparing cars for Chase Elliott, Regan Smith and others. As we left we saw crowds of people queueing outside, we later established that it was because Dale Earnhardt Jr (the sports most popular driver) was in the building and would be signing autographs. Our tight schedule meant that we had to move on however.
From there we headed to Penske Racing, home of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. More of the same here, they had a gift shop together with a great view of their race shop from an upstairs walkway where you could look over the whole shop. These spaces are huge... And spotlessly clean, so clean that you could eat your dinner off the floor!
Next stop was a NASCAR themed BBQ restaurant for lunch.
Lancasters was packed with memorabilia from Yesteryear. Had a nice lunch and thoroughly enjoyed chatting to the other guests on the tour. The roof of the building was covered in bonnets (or hoods) as my American friends say from various cars throughout the years, we were playing a game trying to work out which one belonged to which driver.
3 shops down, 3 more to go and the first stop of the afternoon was to visit Stewart Haas Racing, home of current NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick. They had the very car he won the championship with at Homestead last year, still with the confetti all over it! Not a very good view of the race shop itself but people seemed more interested in splashing their cash in the gift shop.
Once we left here we headed for our penultimate stop of the day, Roush Fenway Racing. Such a powerhouse in the sport up until recent year where they now seem to have faded a little.
There was no race shop to see but they did have some cool things in display in their mini museum to look at.
Finally came the one we had all been waiting for. With their being a lot of Dale Jr and Jeff Gordon fans on the bus we eager to head to Hendrick Motorsports, by far the biggest and most impressive race shop facility of them all. In fact it is not a race shop, it is pretty much an estate. One huge building is the race shop for Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon and features cars that have raced many years ago and won races /championships. It also holds many of the trophies won over the years. From here you can also view the crews working on the cars, setting them up and preparing them for upcoming races.
Next door is the race shop for 6 time champ Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr, obviously this one was packed with other visitors.
A short walk down the road takes you to the museum/gift shop which features Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Jeff Gordon's Daytona 500 race winning cars. A gigantic walk display holds yet more trophies. Being a Jeff Gordon fan I had a browse around the gift shop, had to be done, stocked up on some merchandise as well! We were at this shop for more than double the length of all the others.
After a great first day of Nascar themed activities it was back to the hotel for a chill out, nice to have time to relax after the last few days. Later on in the evening I headed into speed Street festival again but was a little disappointed by it. The only main attraction was the main stage playing live music from 5pm till midnight all through the weekend, which I can hear clearly from my hotel. After grabbing some food from one of the catering stalls and having a mooch around I headed back to the hotel.
A 9:30 start tomorrow as we leave for the track for the first of 2 race days at charlotte motor speedway... Let's go racing!
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