My First Race

On Thursday, I took off for Des Moines to work my first race. Our company sponsors Victory Lane, so we set up a game/activity in Victory Lane at Iowa Speedway so those who have Fan Walk tickets can stop by throughout the day during the practices and qualifying rounds. On Thursday night we stopped by 2 stores at Jordan Creek Mall and then ate at P.F. Chang's so I didn't get to my hotel room until 10:40. This pregnant mama was tired and the work hadn't even begun!

Friday we were up bright and early to get to the track on time and spent the day letting people play Plinko to win various types of swag. It was upper 80's and sunny the whole day, so I was very thankful for our awesome tent, even if we almost lost a team member who was close to achieving lift-off when the helicopter landed!

There were a few other people thankful for our tent too...I love this pit crew member's "water-bottle pillow." He slept like that for a good 30 minutes and they were grateful we shared "the only shade in the entire place". 

Friday night we ate at Granite City which, despite the good food, didn't sit well with the baby. We headed to Orange Leaf after supper and instead of getting to taste the fro-yo I'd heard so much about, I gracefully puked in the parking lot. My team was pretty accommodating, though, and got me a bottle of water, then drove me back to the hotel so I could crash at 8:30. I'm kind of used to puking in front of co-workers, but it usually happened more due to Chicago traffic than morning/all-day sickness.

Saturday we spent another day at the track and this day was much busier. The Plinko game was a good idea because it doesn't require much explanation and with Indy cars roaring around the track all day, you can't really count on being heard. I wore earplugs most of the weekend!  At 4:00 I headed out, dropped off one of my co-workers on the way out of town, then drove the 4 hours home.  I was starving at that point and picked up a roast beef sandwich in Missouri Valley but could not find the DQ that had been listed on the Hwy sign (do you have to keep driving past Arby's and McDonald's into town? Because it's not on the other side of 29. Trust.me.) so I was fuming all the way to Onawa where "LAAAAA!"(angel choir) there was a DQ right off the interstate. I believe I had a newbie cashier because she couldn't ring up by Peanut Butter Cup blizzard in chocolate ice cream and had to wait for someone else to become available to help her (it's under "R" for Reese's...wonder if she also looks for the Oreo one under C for cream-filled cookie). Also, why does DQ not have cheese balls on the menu? They always have them, but they are nowhere to be found on the menu. They should just put on the sign "Don't buy the fries..they're terrible...get cheeseballs instead. Your gut will hate you but your tastebuds don't care".

Okay, sidetrack city here.

Anyway, it was a good weekend and it's always fun with these ladies! I'm glad I was able to help out. I'll keep my "racing culture" comments to myself (except the New Balance tennies with colored socks phenomenon was NOT expected) and I think I'll be more into the races in August when it's Nascar and we actually have a car to cheer on!