Our last installment of the Road Course Adventure had us never making it to the track on Saturday. Well not past the parking gate anyway. I am warning you right now that this is a LONG post (filled with lots of pictures) as Sunday was A LONG day.  If you are on dialup though I don’t want to kill your ability to see my site so continue on to read the adventure of Sunday at the Races….

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Well the last we spoke of my Road Course Adventure (see: Infineon: A Road Course Adventure Day 1), BFFM and I had spent Friday afternoon at the track…after getting slightly lost and ending up in Petaluma (my dad says I could get lost in a paper bag). Saturday’s adventure could be dubbed: The Day of Dolphins and Driving. And unfortunately didn’t have a darn thing to do with race cars…as you will soon find out.

On Saturday we decided to skip practice at INFINEON and go nearby SIX FLAGS: DISCOVERY KINGDOM (it use to be Marine World when I was a kid).  Well I didn’t know we would end up having so much fun and we didn’t really even ride anything (neither of us like roller coasters).  Of course it shouldn’t really surprise me that we had so much fun- because we both kind of like going to zoos and the like.   Well we ended up staying a little later than we thought we would but that was ok. Here are some pictures from our fun time at Discovery Kingdom:

A dophin trainer and audience helper instruct the dolphins from the underwater window at Discovery Kingdom. Photocredit: ME

A camel observes us watching it! Photo Credit: ME

I spent a lot of time in the Butterfly habitat..only to find that it was really humid in there- and I had to squelch the instinct to swat at them! Photo Credit: ME

I don't know why but I LOVE Flamingos...Photo Credit: ME

I love this giraffe picture I took. Photo Credit: ME

After we were done at Discovery Kingdom- we grabbed a quick bite to eat nearby and took off to the track.  I honestly do not remember what time it was but I do know that we were flagged into the gate and drove up only to have trackworkers tell us to turn around and go in gate one…that gate 7 was now exit only.  We were cranky by this point and decided to go out looking for this vinyard in Calistoga that is owned by my mom’s best friend’s son-in-law because my mom wanted me to pick up a bottle of Cabernet for my dad.  So we drove and drove and drove…through all kinds of wine country…I don’t think I have ever seen so many grapes being grown ever! Anyway traffic was terrible during parts of the drive because of a fairly nasty looking accident at one point and it being Saturday I assume.  We finally get to the Winery only to find it closed. I have no idea if they were closed on weekends or we just missed them closing (we got there about 4:15ish I thing.  So I wasn’t looking forward to it but we turned around and drove back to the track only so we could then drive back to the hotel. I am sure there was a more direct route but we did it this way for two reasons:

1. The genius (me) who printed out directions didn’t think to print directions from the winery directly to the hotel. That was dumb.

2. On the way to the winery we spied a HUGE blue chair and decided it would make good picture fodder…so we definitely wanted to stop at the big blue chair on the way back.  How could we not:

BFFM in the Big Blue Chair. Photo Credit: ME

We also stopped at a cute little market to get something to drink because we were both parched as heck…and while we just picked up some diet cokes and two chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick for the drive- they really have a lot of stuff in that cute little store (although it was murder trying to turn left out of the market to get back on the highway).

So yeah we never actually made it out of the car on Saturday at Infineon…but we still had a lot of fun.

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I must say that after we got back from our entire race-cation I found out that Tony Stewart was at Six Flags but on FRIDAY! Damnation! I totally would have went had I known! URG!

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Stay tune for the final installment- hopefully up sometime Wednesday or Thursday (its a long one!)

Here’s a story of a girl named Amy, who went to Infineon for the first time on June 19-21st to see the NASCAR race.  In tow- her BFF.

On Friday on a semi lark,  we left my home, drove to Santa Rosa to see Tony’s show car:

Tony's Show Car at Office Depot in Santa Rosa, CA. Did you know that the office depot car is sparkly? It is when you are up close to it. Photo Credit: ME

From there we were off to the hotel. We were staying in in Concord, CA. All I can say is that HOTWIRE has not led us astray yet. This was a nice hotel- centrally located for our purposes. After a moment to refresh we were on our way to Infineon to check out the track- get our bearings and hopefully catch qualifying since we definitely did not catch practice.

You all know I have a fear of heights.  Its actually a fairly intense fear- so much that I the Ferris Wheel at Disney’s California Adventure made me cry (as an adult). Well this fear also extends to extremely tall bridges…and I knew we would have to be crossing one so I was a little freaked out to have to drive across a bridge. I must have been envisioning like the Bay Bridge or The Golden Gate- because this one didn’t freak me out at all.  So YEY there- since we would have to cross it several times.  The other thing I would have to deal with that I have never dealt with before would be a toll! $4.00!! That is crazy- or so I think anyway! That would be 20 bucks a week if I had to cross that bridge everyday for work or something! Of course I would also have one of those fancy fastrac things and not have to wait to hand my money to a person.

Anyway- we follow our directions to the speedway- and in trying to find the parking area- end up by passing the track and the parking area only to end up in nearby Petaluma. Whoops.  I never said I had a great sense of direction. So we get turned back towards the speedway and I see that I totally missed the parking area turn off- and get turned into the speedway and parked (next to a pasture filled with sheep and goats I might add).  So we walked up to the shuttle stop and just as I was cresting the top of the hill I hear what sounds like my car being pelted with pebbles. I turn to see a jerk in a car peeling out of the gravel lot and peppering my car (which was parked in an end spot) with dirt. Both my friend and I turn and instinctively yell “REAL NICE JERK” and apparently we did it loud enough they heard cuz the passenger turned towards us.  I mean seriously use your freaking head people.  Anyway, we just happened to hit it right so that the shuttle was there at the stop and made our way down to the grandstand area of the track. We were going to watch qualifying in our Turn 7 seats…but problem there was that we were kinda late by the time we made it to the grandstands and it would require either quite the hike or a shuttle ride!! So we took a place right next to the start/finish line about halfway up- which was actually the optimum place to watch qualifying:

Martin Truex Jr. Qualifies at Infineon Raceway. I really liked Martin's blue car for Infineon. Photo Credit: ME

Denny Hamlin takes the green flag at the beginning of his qualifying run. Photo Credit: ME!

Jeff Gordon qualifies. I have to say that Jeff's car is extremely pretty in person. It stands out well. Photo Credit: ME

Junior makes his qualifying attempt at Infineon. Photo Credit: ME

I am going to have to admit that it was a little more disorientating than I thought it would be to be sitting in stands on the “wrong” side of the track. By that I mean that the grandstands at the startfinish line they are on the side of the track that would be considered “infield” at an oval. That was just a little odd to me.

After qualifying we wandered through the tunnel to the merchandise area (you can see it on the otherside of the track over there in the qualifying pictures). I don’t know if it was me or not but there seemed to be signifigantly fewer merchandise haulers at infineon than elsewhere. I don’t know if the others were located somewhere else but I didn’t see that many. When were done with merchandise we wandered back over to the shuttle and left for the day.

Next Up: Infineon: A Road Course Adventure Day 2: Saturday

Work has been the kind of busy where when I get home I don’t really want to get on the computer much. But I am almost done uploading some of my race pictures (I took 4 gigs with the rebel at infineon and about 500 megs with the powershot at six flags- so that is a lot of pictures to sort through just so that I can tell you the story of my trip to Infineon (aka the “bridges and tolls and sheep oh my!” adventure). I promise its coming…honestly. Just give me a little more time!