The Sharpie 500 Saturday, August 27, 2005 I talked to E.T. and Koz Wednesday about catching a ride with them to Bristol Tennessee for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race. They were driving from Detroit and I had never been to the summer race there. It is on a Saturday night and allows one to party good and then have all day Sunday to drive home. I later talked to BW and he said that he could go, so I wouldn't need E.T. to drive a couple hours out of his way. He also said that Dave Gordon was going to go. E.T. and Koz got to Bristol on Thursday, we Indy guys would leave Friday afternoon. I had a very stressful week with a job interview at 2pm on Friday. I hadn't had time to get ready for the trip other than picking up booze (Grolsch Red Amber, John Courage, Rolling Rock, Evan Williams Single Barrel 10 year old whisky and a bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon), so we didn't leave my house till 4 pm. BW brought a 30 pack of some cheap beer and a jug of Evan Williams. Dave's girlfriend got sick and he decided not to go, so it was just BW and I. BW drove us in his minivan. We had an uneventful trip and arrived in Bristol at 11 pm. I slowly unwound from all my stress during the trip and felt pretty good. The Busch race had several rain delays and was still going on when we got to Farmer Bob's campground. E.T. and Koz met us at the gate and got us in. We had the same great camping spot as we've had on previous visits, but this time we were sharing it with a bunch of other people whom ET and Koz had met at prior races. I met those guys as they returned from the Busch race. The temperature got below the 70's that evening so it was comfortable and we had a campfire. I hadn't brought any food and I regretted it. Koz was kind enough to get me a snack. One of the guys that had staked out the campground for us lived in the area. His name was Jamie and he had to get up the next morning to go to work. Koz, ET, BW and I stayed up real late. We all got up the next morning except BW, who slept into the afternoon. The first thing I did Saturday morning was walk over to the breakfast hut that is set up next to the shower barn and grabbed some coffee and biscuits and stewed apples. These campgrounds seem to contain a large proportion of men and their shower line was pretty long. As I sat there eating, a living vision came out of the showers in a miniskirt and sat down across from and crossed her legs. I about fell over backwards! Damn she was beautiful. There were also some horses nearby that some people were petting. Back at camp, the guys had setup a shooting range. They had a high power pellet rifle and everyone was taking turns shooting. Some of these guys were from New Zealand, but are now living in Florida. Brice taking aim. E.T. loading a pellet. E.T. is measuring the distance from the targets to the gun. After some more drinking, we played some horseshoes. They set up a pool and everyone threw in $20 to pull a few drivers out of a hat. My picks sucked. Finally, BW woke up and we drove through the camp to find some food and tickets for the race. We found one guy who was selling his $96 tickets for $150 each. We passed on those. It started raining while we were driving. There were some souvenir and food stands up near the gate and I bought a sandwich. People bring all kinds of small transportation to the campgrounds - ATVs, Scooters, Motorcycles - I even saw a powered barstool! I wish BW would have brought his ATVs. These guys had the ultimate smoker grill! Numerous campers brought their own swimming pools! The rain didn't last long and had stopped before we got back to our campsite. Here is some examples of the native fauna. BW and I met some guys from Columbus Ohio in a nearby campsite and we played them a few games of horseshoes. We were getting a little nervous about getting tickets, as we didn't have much money to spend, when some girl in a golf kart drove up waving 2 tickets that were together. They were $96 tickets and she took $100 for both of them. Yeah! The Detroit guys had brought all their beer in big jugs. It was some great beer made by small breweries in Michigan. Brice pulled a giant frosted glass out of his cooler and preceded to almost empty one of the jugs into it. The glass held more than a liter. He then passed it around to share. It was called the friendship glass and had the numbers one through seven printed around the rim. Seven people share the glass, each sipping from his assigned number. Brice recalled a song he'd heard about the glass that went something like, "Friendship glass. Friendship glass. It really kicked our ass...." :-) Someone had brought a big propane grill and loaded it up with big beef tenderloins which they make filet mignon from. Rick sliced it up and we grabbed pieces and ate it by hand. It was very delicious. It was gone in a second. Eventually the afternoon turned into evening and we hiked to the track which is across the street from the campground. First, we had to climb this hill. By the time we got inside the track, we'd missed the driver introductions. BW and I headed to the front row by the start/finish line where there is no assigned seating. There was a childrens choir singing with a few drivers standing about. It was surprising to see this huge section of the crowd create this American Flag. My friends occasionally get in the way when I'm trying to take pictures at the track. BW, being a photographer, should know better. He should also know that 900 decibles is not going to come through a cellphone better by holding the phone two feet closer to the track. It is so loud in the front row, where the cars zoom by seven feet away, that earplugs are a must. The decible level where we were was so high that if you pulled your earplugs out, your ears would start ringing instantly. Sitting on the front row is unbelievable! The cars zip by so fast infront of you, its like some spaceships out of Star Wars. It is very exciting and besides the noise, there is a good amount of wind. After about an hour, BW and I decided to go check out our seats. They were located very high in the middle of turns three and four. (Waltrip Stand, Row 51) There didn't appear to be any room and we tried to get people to squeeze up so we could sit down. BW was mad about the tight situation. He spent half the time standing and complaining. While he annoyed everyone around us, I lit up a big Romeo & Juliet cigar and finished the job. For awhile, it looked like Rusty Wallace and Kurt Busch would finish 2-3. Matt Kenseth dominated and would go on to win the race. After I finished the stogie, we left and returned back to the front row, where we were to meet Koz and ET after the race. Here is E.T. doing a beer bong. The checkered flag waves! We got separated and E.T. and BW returned to camp together while Koz and I looked around at souvenir stands before returning to camp. I got a t-shirt for $5. Back at camp, someone had put up some neon sheep on top of the camper! Koz grilled hamburgers for everyone. We stayed up really late and partied. ET related how BW had fell down the campground hill on the way back. BW can sleep anywhere anytime, and he went right to sleep as soon as he got back to camp, which was around midnight. Let's see he was up for 11 hours today... After all his sleep, he didn't seem to mind waking me up early the next morning after I'd had only a few hours sleep. Consequently I felt terrible the entire trip back to Indy. I guess next time I need to specify DON'T WAKE ME UP! Anyway, we drove through major rain most of the way back, perhaps caused by Hurricane Katrina, which had hit Louisiana while we were in Bristol. Indy's weather was beautiful, but in a day or so, Katrina would dump rain on us all day long. Back to Photo Index.