Friday night my father, Michael and I went to the stock car races about 15 minutes from our house. This is the second time this season that we went and it was more fun this time than the last.
Michael really likes to watch the “junkers.” You know, the $300 cars that are held together with string and bubble gum. There may not be much money in the cars, but the drivers sure do take the race seriously. They are banging in the corners and jockeying for position every single lap.
Of course, this usually leads to many accidents — that in turn gets Michael laughing and jumping. All three of us pick a car in every race — we don’t bet or anything, but we have a lot of fun picking on each other when we don’t finish well.
The Sportsman series was there this weekend, which is a step down from the MASCAR. These guys put a lot of time, energy and money into their race teams and it shows. Very serious racers in this class, but the accidents are few and far between. Unfortunately for a few, one car lost its engine going into turn three on the last lap and sent three cars flying off the end of the race track.
My father was very involved in racing when he was younger, so he knows a lot about the cars and the setup. He said on Friday that he never raced one, but I think he was probably in one driving at one time or another.
I would love to get behind the wheel and race. I probably wouldn’t last long after bumping a few people off the track, but at least Michael would be screaming and laughing the whole time.
August 7th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
If you ever have the chance, pick up an old junker and run it in a demolition derby. I had a ‘79 T-Bird which I drove in a demo derby about 10 years ago - what a hoot!!!
… still have the lighter from that beast.
August 7th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
My Mother and I were talking about that today. I haven’t heard about a demo derby around here in a lot of years.
Michael would love that though