Andrea Wieland's wedding ring that was lost and found at Michigan (Photo Credit: Andrea Wieland)

I can’t imagine the feeling of losing something so precious:

“I was frantic. I’ve been attending races at MIS for the past five or six years and have always had a great time. This time, because of my own doing, I was upset because I had lost a ring I’ve cherished for 16 years of marriage.” Andrea Wieland

Eventually Wieland went about her day at the track, sure the ring was gone.  Unbeknownst to her, a member of Brian Vicker’s Red Bull Racing pit crew, found her ring, picked it up and vowed to try to reunite the ring with it’s owner.  Fast forward the drive home after the race, Wieland posted the following on the Speedway’s FaceBook page via her mobile phone:

“Anyone who may have been in the garage area at MIS and may have found a wedding ring with 13 diamonds in it that includes the big center diamond PLEASE message me through Facebook!”

Amanda Day, MIS Media Director, happened to see her message on the Speedway’s Facebook page, and a couple of days later, when she received a call from North Carolina from the pit crew member with the ring she just had to put the crew member in touch with Wieland.  Just a few days after losing the ring, Wieland had the ring back safely on her hand.

“It tells you a lot about everyone involved in the sport of NASCAR. Whether you are a fan, NASCAR team crew member or MIS staffer, everyone just cares about one another like a big family. I don’t think the same thing would have happened at another major sporting event. That’s what separates MIS and NASCAR racing from the rest!” Andrea Wieland

While many will think that this is just a feel good story, and that Wieland was very lucky to get her ring back, I don’t think NASCAR fans are surprised.  This is one of the things about our sport that draws fans to it.  People care.

Andrea Wieland with Michigan Speedway President Roger Curtis taken during the Pure Michigan 400 Weekend. (photo credit: Andrea Wieland)

“I’ve drawn my line in the sand, and the next guy that blocks me, he is going to suffer the same fate. It doesn’t matter who it is. That’s what it’s going to be.” Tony Stewart, Daytona’s Friday Press Conference

“I’ll make sure when I do it the next time that the guy doesn’t have the opportunity to come back and wreck me.” Tony Stewart, Daytona’s Friday Press Conference

I also got from the press conference that the reason that Tony wasn’t planning on drafting with his teammate Ryan Newman is that he didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket should an event during the race occur. And did they occur.

(L-R) Joe Nemechek, driver of the #87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota, Tony Stewart, driver of the #14 Burger King Chevrolet, Travis Kvapil, driver of the #38 Long John Silver's Ford and David Gilliland, driver of the #34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, race during the Coke ZERO 400 at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo Credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images North America)

(I dub thee Stewiland and Kvapilchek respectively pod racers)

Tony spent much of the race in the back of the pack just kinda hanging out with his drafting partner from the last restrictor plate race, David Gilliland. So they were dubbed Stewiland again.  Stewiland did do a test run to the front about at the halfway point? Just to see how long it would take I am thinking.  He even led a lap- so YEY extra point there.  However in the last part of the race, Tony seemed mired at the end of the field and I was sure it was going to be another dismal finish for Tony and the 14 crew. However- thanks  to two accident induced green-white-checkers – most especially that last one…Tony worked his way up to an 11th place finish. While I would usually not be as happy as I was with an 11th place finish, its only because laps before I was worried he would finish 20th or even possibly lower than that.  So while Tony didn’t gain in the points standings, he also didn’t really drop in the points standings.  He remains 12th (with NO WINS! PANIC AT THE RACE TRACK!).  Race winner was David Ragan!

The race at Daytona really got me thinking about “pod” racing or the 2×2 racing or whatever you want to call what restrictor plate racing has become. I am trying to decide if I like it or not.  I use to think maybe I did but now I am not so sure. While I still think that pod racing is better than the two long freight trains that jockeyed back and forth all race, I am not sure that I like the fact that you are STILL dependent on someone else to win.  It just seems more like politicking and less like racing.  I have to tell you though that I LOVED Junior’s post race comments, as reported by sbnation, about the whole deal:

“You guys need to get your own frickin’ opinions and write what y’all think about it,” he said. “Because I think (those opinions are) pretty damn close to mine. So stop putting my damn foot in my mouth with y’all and getting my ass in trouble. Y’all write what y’all think, man. C’mon. Y’all are good. Y’all got an opinion about it; I read y’all’s shit.” Dale Jr as quoted by SBNation

Emphasis is mine, because that part is the best part of the whole damn quote right there.  Seriously that has to be one of THE best quotes of the season, let alone the Daytona race.  Junior doesn’t like pod racing.

Notes About Daytona:

1. I still think that making up cutsie names for the different pod combinations is fun (see picture above).
2. Don’t think I didn’t notice that it was Evil Brian Vickers as I now call him, pushing Tony at the end of the Daytona race. I still think I will call him EBV though.  At least until someone else makes me mad, anyway. Then all will no doubt be forgotten.
3. Dear SiriusXM DJ (you were either on The Boneyard or Hair Nation but it’s been days now so I can’t remember which)- Yes the race REALLY was called the Subway Jalapeno 250 (talking about the nationwide race there) maybe you should have read the promo to yourself before reading it on the air so you didn’t sound dumb.

Next week we go Sprint Cup racing for the first time in Kentucky!!

Tony Stewart, driver of the #14 Burger King Chevrolet, looks on while he sits in his car during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series COKE ZERO 400 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway on July 1, 2011 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo Credit: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images North America)

I am going to admit something right here…Misty and I played hooky from Infineon on Saturday and played tourists in San Fransisco so I really have NOTHING to tell you of Saturday.  Valli has a post about Saturday though if you want to check out what she was doing (plus you can read about how Dale Jr tried to scare her just like Jimmie did to us the day before).

We were up with the chickens on Sunday- grabbed a quick bite in the room and headed right to the track on Sunday morning and it wasn’t even early enough because the race traffic heading into Infineon was in full effect!  I remembered this from the time we came in 2009 and thought we had left in plenty of time- apparently not.  Not that we were late- but we were later than we wanted to be. So we get into the track plop our stuff down in the media center (I LOVE having a place I can ditch my stuff at the race so that I don’t have to carry all my belongings with me everywhere I go) grab both of my cameras and we decide to spend the morning just wandering before the start of the race.  First we wandered over to the driver introduction stage to get some pictures of three greats: Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett and Bobby Allison. I have to admit…Misty got THE best picture of Bobby Allison:

Bobby Allison talks with PRN host before the race at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

Ned Jarrett (photo credit: Misty Bethany)

The King- Richard Petty. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

My instinct was to say at the driver intro stage until driver introductions were over- but Valli kindly told us we should check out pit road instead.  And that is what we did.  We walked up and down pit road repeatedly.  It was crowded and I was starting to get hot and cranky with all the people because at the time pit road was a madhouse.  So Misty and I picked a random pit stall and sat down for a tad on the wall.  It just happened to be next to Joey Logano’s pit stall and the crew were  busying themselves prepping for the race when I got this AWESOME picture:

Pit helmet and Radio (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Just getting that shot inspired me to get some other cool shots:

Under Pressure (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Flammable (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Three little gas cans sitting in a row...(photo credit: Amy Marbach)

No Ethanol For Carl Edwards (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Tire shot- with US ARMY crew. Almost every race I get at least one tire shot- it's my thing. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Then after the track and event security cleared pit road of fans we continued to wander- only much more freely. It was at this point where I started feeling really conspicuous and kind of out of place.  Misty and I were trying to decide where we should go at this point. Obviously we have different favorite drivers so we started off over by Jeff Gordon’s car just in time to see his family arriving at the car:

Leo Gordon arrives for Pre Race ceremonies (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Ella Gordon arrives for Pre-Race (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

So it was kind of fun to witness the filling in of the drivers families and crews to the cars on the raceway grid on pit road.  It was kind of weird because every time I would look up I saw SOMEONE.  Misty and I decided to move down pit road a bit at one point for instance and I look over at her to ask her a question and Misty is walking side by side with Gene Haas…and had no idea because she was paying attention to me and not who was next to her.  I didn’t snap a picture because Misty probably would have wondered what I was doing plus I thought it would be an odd thing to do at such a close radius without actually asking to take the picture.

We finally ended up near Kyle Busch’s car:

Samantha Busch stands by Kyle's Car. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Now we had three very good reasons for staying in the Kyle Busch area and none of them had anything to do with M&M’s.  One is that Tony’s car was on one side of Kyle.  then of course, Dale Jr was on the other side of Kyle.  And lastly, pre-race was about to start so we had to settle in somewhere and Misty and I felt most comfortable hanging off towards the side of Kyle’s car…I can’t explain why.

Dale Jr. stands next to his Amp Chevrolet on Sunday at Infineon. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

Mr. Hendrick, Dale Jr., and Steve Letarte talk prerace on Sunday at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

Tony was pretty much impossible to get a shot of before the pre-race ceremonies started. The reasoning for this?  He was pretty much surrounded by people and then by crew (Although I did miss my opportunity to get a great shot of the crew huddle/prayer circle whatever you call it as it was just breaking up when we got there). Also? He got in his car BEFORE pre-race.  I don’t know if he was hot or sick of people hollering at him for his attention (there was this one guy who was loudly yelling for Tony’s attention and unfortunate for my ear drums he was right next me- my right ear is still ringing- TONY TONY?! HEY TONY!)- it was kinda strange to see him already in his car before the ceremonies started but he was.

A NASCAR official talks to Tony Stewart who sits in his car prior to the race at Infineon Raceway on Sunday. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Then the pre-race ceremonies started.

PreRace Ceremonies. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Pretty much I was standing off to the side towards the pit wall between Juniors and Kyles car at this point.  We stood there looking  all somber as one tends to do during invocation and the national anthem.  As soon as it was over we started high tailing it back to the media center.  As soon as we got there we ended up catching Ingrid Vandebosch taking little Leo for a walk in his stroller:

Ingrid Vandebosch and baby Leo go for awhile while they fire up the engines. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

Then we took our seats in the media center to watch the race.  We had a great view of turn 11 – which as you know is where the action was ALL day long.

We all know now in hindsight that Tony pushed Vickers on purpose because he felt he was blocking. I had no way of knowing that in the media center though- to me it looked like Vicker’s checked up and Tony accidentally spun him. I even tweeted it. And then promptly forgot about the incident and continued to watch the race. It was really kind of hard to hear the national broadcast in the media center actually.  That was my biggest complaint…and I coudn’t listen to my Sprint Cup ap on my phone because I didn’t have headphones and didn’t want to disrupt the entire media center.

Now for “THE incident” – I followed Tony’s drive down the straightaway and into the turn.  I glance back to the straightaway and saw Vickers flying into the turn way too fast. I knew no good would come of that.  Then, of course, was the retaliation hit.  All I could really see was tire smoke and then Tony hanging off the tires.

Tony in the tires at Infineon. (I DID NOT TAKE THIS PICTURE...I borrowed it from TonyStewart.com)

Now, I let a few not so nice words escape my lips.  I CAN’T HELP IT.  Really I can’t. I get wrapped up and I can’t help it when this happens.  The worst part was that, as I mentioned before, I couldn’t really hear the television that was airing the national broadcast, so I didn’t know what was going on and Tony seemed to be hanging on the tires a really long time. It was all I could do not to SHUSH the entire room so I could hear. The best thing? My Twitter peeps were keeping me informed as to what was happening for the most part there. My absolute favorite tweet I got while I was sitting there though? Was this one:

Branden Williams: I sure hope @badgroove isn’t at the track. Because Vickers better run if she is. #justsaying

He had no idea I was sitting in the media center.  My Tony Stewart fandom OBVIOUSLY precedes me- and I am proud of it.  Truthfully,  I actually did have an urge to run down to the garage area because I figured they would have to bring the car in and I honestly wanted to see how damaged Tony’s car was.  But a good portion of the media center was already down there trying to get a sound byte, so I figured I should stay put because I didn’t think they wanted MY sound bytes because invariably they would be flying and they wouldn’t be pretty.

After Tony’s day was pretty much crushed into smithereens in the tire barrier, the rest of the race seemed long and drawn out. That is until the end, when Jeff Gordon started flying through the field at the end. I am still not sure how he passed Carl Edwards there at the end…but I know Misty was quite pleased when he did.  After the race we packed up our stuff and headed downstairs to the press conference room and waited for Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards to do their post race:

Carl Edwards checks his voicemail before the start of the post-race press conference. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards share a laugh at their post-race press conference at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: Misty Bethany)

Jeff Gordon is joined by his daughter Ella during his post race press conference at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: Amy Marbach)

All this was going on while Kurt Busch was celebrating his victory in Victory lane outside.  They were still there when Misty and I left, trying to get an early start on the traffic. Our early start was not so early.  However, I will say that our new way leaving was much much quicker than in 2009 when we sat in nearly dead-stopped traffic for over 3 hours.  So YEY.

And there you have it.  This experience was great fun! There are some videos I will post soon as well.

I admit that the whole twitter deal between Brian Vickers and Jimmie Johnson made the choice of introduction songs even more intriguing to me.  Jimmie Johnson recently started tweeting (@JimmieJohnson) and to welcome him to the tweeting world Brian Vickers (@BrianLVickers) and he decided it would be fun to let each other and their twitter followers pick each others introduction songs.  That alone right there should have made introductions more TV worthy.  Apparently there was some legal reason that they couldn’t show intros (that and the time constraint on the pre-race show, I suspect).  Anyway- in case you were wondering Brian Vicker’s got introduced to Shania Twain’s Man, I Feel Like A Woman and Jimmie Johnson got introduced to Sisqo’s The Thong Song.

Some songs choices that interested me were: Paul Menard picking Black Label Society’s Concrete Jungle. I don’t know if he actually likes BLS or if he just picked it because that is exactly what Bristol is…but I liked that choice. I also loved that two drivers picked Avenge Sevenfold songs  (Matt Kenseth picked Nightmare and Regan Smith picked Welcome To The Family).  Clint Bowyer’s choice of the Theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly cracked me up. And how fitting was Bill Elliott’s song choice of Devil Went Down To Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band and Bobby Labonte’s choice of God Bless Texas by Little Texas.  The only driver who’s song didn’t seem to match the driver was Kasey Kahne’s choice of A Country Boy Can Survive by Hank Williams Jr.  It’s not that I don’t like that song- I do. But I don’t hear Hank Williams Jr and immediately think Kasey Kahne- it just didn’t fit Kasey in my mind. If you are interested in the complete list of driver introduction songs check out this article over on sbnation. Honestly I could probably go down the entire list and muse on for a paragraph per driver- but I won’t bore you there.

Now onto Tony:

Gratuitous Tony Picture. Tony Stewart before the race at Bristol. (photo credit: borrowed without asking from the Official Tony Stewart facebook page)

Tony Stewart was introduced to his standard Bawitaba by Kid Rock. Which I guess he must REALLY like it since he always uses it.  I still stand by my assertion that Tony needs to pick a new introduction song.  If he needs help all he needs to do is come here (or poll his fans) because  we got some great suggestions for Tony when I called for suggestions on the first post of this series! Those would be (in no particular order):  Real Good Man by Tim McGraw (which happen to be suggested by winner Claudia), Rough N Ready by Trace Adkins (I love Trace Adkins), When You’re Hot You’re Hot by Jerry Reed, Sound of Madness by Shinedown, Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple (hey Tony does like classic rock), Dirt Road Anthem by Brantley Gilbert and Colt Ford (suggested by our other winner Dudley- which is funny because I have been on a Colt Ford kick lately), #1 by Nelly, and Gasoline by Kicking Harold (which I had never heard before but I really like this song now that I have).  All great songs to be used as introduction songs for Tony Stewart…but I still like my choice of I Don’t Want To Stop by Ozzy Osbourne best (see The Music of Bristol Part 2) even though Tony told me in our second interview with him that he isn’t a big heavy metal guy.  Now if only we convince him to pick one of our songs just to mix things up a little bit! I mean seriously Tony- I like Kid Rock too, but we have some great suggestions for you to pick from here.

Anyway congratulations go out to Claudia and Dudley who were the winners of the contest I held as part of the Music of Bristol posts.  Their Goodyear Racing prizes are on their way to them!

___

I just wanted you all to know that the winners were picked randomly and not based on how many comments each entrant made (some people made multiple comments and that was totally fine- but they still only got one entry into the contest) or what song you picked. Basically I put your name on a post-it note (pink for the girls and white for the guys) and picked one of each out of my old 20 knit cap.

• My fantasy league? I haven’t even checked my standings for the last month or so because I was sure I was tanking. I checked today. Confirmed- am definitely TANKING! I am currently 85th out of 114!!  I blame the majority of this on Brian Vicker’s blood clots. I picked him as one of my drivers because he tends to be up there towards the front.  But now that he’s out of the seat the team hasn’t been doing so hot. Bah.  Tony and Dale Jr have been doing better- so they are the reason I went up 2 places after Sonoma  (yeah see 87th not so hot) so YEY for that but this is just a sad sad team this year. (By the way- I still love Brian Vickers…I really do and I don’t honestly blame him for my team tanking).
• We are 10 races away from the CHASE cut off. Don’t think I don’t know that and don’t think that just because Tony’s moved back up into the top ten (YEY GO TONY GO!!!!) that I have relaxed one bit about watching points.  Of course I have been watching points since Daytona…so that says nothing.  I know Tony says he’s not worried about it…but…I am.
• So you probably noticed my Sonoma post, while it had a pretty picture left much to be desired? It was because I was bummed I wasn’t there like I was last year.  Oh and…I know that Valli would cover it well and in depth. Which she is doing- she got the chance to interview more drivers -so be sure to check out The Fast and the Fabulous for that…she also came up with a catchy title for one of her Sonoma posts: To Infineon and Beyond…why can’t I think of good titles like that?. Oh and she got to experience the confrontation between Said’s crew chief and Tony Stewart first hand. Check that out here…and while you are there look for the  picture of Kevin Harvick hugging Tony’s dad…while Tony squats and messes with his shoe…cute!
• For those of you in New Hampshire, Ryan Newman will be signing autographs at his merch trailer tomorrow June 25th from 3:30 -4:30 (time subject to change based on qualifying draw- check the trailer for more information).
• Don’t forget that if you own a small business you should enter the The Official Small Business of NASCAR contest from Office Depot Racing.
• You also have a little more than a month to buy your raffle ticket for Smoke’s Camaro. You have the change to win a bitchin’ 2010 Chevy Camaro customized by Unique Autosports. Proceeds benefit the Tony Stewart Foundation and their many initiatives supporting criticially ill children, various animal charities and injured drivers.  Go to SMOKESCAMARO.com for more information.

My only issue is that I read that the Shootout MUST end under a green flag- so I was pretty sure that Harvick had not actually won but I guess he actually did. I guess it was considered a green-white-checker finish rule? I was a little confused about that. Congrats to Harvick on his win!

I am so excited that the season is starting….let’s go boys!

What made up for it was Tony’s win!!  I will be the first to admit I didn’t hold much hope for Tony doing well in Kansas that is certain.  Why? Because I made the mistake of watching the end first practice (which I thought at the time was happy hour).  And by the end I mean the very end- and was not thrilled at all to hear the announcers talking about how everyone in the whole garage area wanted to know “what’s going on with Tony Stewart’s car” and then I heard the words vibration and possibly a lost cylinder and I was like DAMN there goes Kansas.  I SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO WATCH PRACTICE FOR THIS REASON…I hear something like that and I am like DAMN there goes Kansas- we will suck now. AHHH there goes the championship (because you should all know me by now…I am a “worst-case scenario” type of person). Yeah that’s right I admit it right here and now that I heard 5 minutes of practice and was all DAMN I JUST HOPE he finishes in the top 10 in the CHAMPIONSHIP.  Again…I SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO WATCH PRACTICE- please steal my remotes during practice. Its for my own damn good. I found out much much later (as in hours AFTER THE RACE) that not only was I apparently NOT watching happy hour, but that Tony’s crew basically tore the entire car down and replaced tons of stuff (so much stuff that it might cost you and I over $6000 and use of our car for 10 days should it be stuff we needed to replace in our passenger cars).

Well the crew obviously did an AWESOME job. Tony seemed to be fairly consistent during the race. I kept expecting him to fall back fall back…but he never did. There wasn’t a time where I thought he needed to turn on his afterburners to get back up to the front. More- it seemed he was very patient and extremely consistent as were all the pit stops. No major errors. Good job for Tony, Darian and all the guys on the pit crew! Tony is now just 67 points out of the lead in fourth position in the championship standings.  Teammate Ryan Newman didn’t have a great run. Ryan finished 22nd (although its an improvement from where he started at 30th) and fell two positions to 9th in the standings.

Notes from Kansas:

• During pre-race- in between my satellite popping in and out I saw Vickers standing next to his car during the national anthem…with a dolly sitting on the roof of his car. YES a dolly- in the brief glimpse i got it looked kind of like a BRATZ doll… WTH? There has to be a story behind it…anyone one know?
• Poor Joey Logano must be getting tired about hearing about his flipping at Dover. I know I am.

Next Week: The Chase comes to CALIFORNIA (and no I will NOT be going…but don’t think I don’t want to).