The crew started the day early on Saturday morning with Jeff, Andy, Eric and Kenny meeting up and tailgating in the parking lot.  Andy cooked up some excellent brats and we had a burger, chips and of course a few beers.  Jeff and Eric went into the infield for the start of the race.  It was neat to be so close to the drivers and see all the action on pit road.  Pit road isn’t the best place to see the race so after a few laps Jeff and Eric went out to catch up with Andy and Kenny.  On the way they stopped in one of Eric’s friend’s suites just to say hi.  Then they continued on to the Turn 4 area where Andy and Kenny were camped out for the race.  It was great to get all those different perspectives of the track.  Jeff picked Joey Lagano to win the race and right up until the end of the race it looked like Kyle Busch was going to win it.  In the last few laps Kyle had a tire issue and Brad Kaslowski swooped in to take the win.  Joey came in second.  Most everyone was happy that Kyle didn’t win though.

We weren’t sure if we were going to stay for the truck race.  It had been a long day.  Right at the last minute Andy and I decided that we would stay.  I have never seen the truck race so it was something I wanted to.  Andy and I went back into the track and took a seat in Turn 1.  It was a good race.  Again Kyle Busch dominated and made it look easy at each restart weaving in and out of the others.  Right at the end of the race he had another tire problem and wasn’t able to recover.  There were a lot of cautions for tire problems but it was still a good race.  Afterwards, Andy and I dragged ourselves out of the stands and headed home.  It was a very long day but also a very fun one!

Even though I had a pass that would get me into the infield I decided that two days of racing was enough for me and I’ll watch the Sprint Cup on TV.  It was an excellent experience and I’m thankful to have good friends to be able to share the experience with!

A few short videos taken from my phone are also posted at: http://www.qik.com/jdfrey1

Here is a picture of Indianapolis Motor Speedway from the air.  The flight into Eagle Creek took us just to the north end of the track.

We had a fun time in Indy spending time riding race go-karts on Friday and going to a great dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse.  On Saturday we spent most of the day at the track.  We were able to get access to the infield to see the end of Qualifying, spend some good time in the “Hall of Fame”, peruse the sponsor booths and driver trailors and see some of the practice session.  It was a great day at the track!  Saturday night continued with a great dinner at St. Elmo’s Steakhouse which is very well known for their shrimp cocktail which comes with an excellent homemade cocktail sauce with fresh horseradish.  The evening continued with a quick trip to the new casino in Anderson and then a night at the clubs in downtown Indy.  A fun filled day that didn’t end until about 3:30 AM!

Sunday morning was a little rough, but after shaking off the cobwebs we headed out to the track for the race.  A beautiful day for the race and an interesting venue.  The seats were just short of the start/finish line and only about 10 rows back from the pits.  At Indianapolis Motor Speedway you can’t see the whole track.  The track is also very long so there is a time between each lap when the cars come around.  There were also a lot of cautions at the race due to a tire issue identified the day before.  NASCAR was taking precautionary cautions just when the racing started to get good.  At the end of the day, Jimmie Johnson won the race.

On Monday morning there were some early storms that passed through Indy.  Visibility was a little low at about 4 miles but just north of the area it was clear.  There was a slight delay in departure.  Weather being reported on AWOS stations from Dayton, OH to Dover, DE was reported as sky clear below 12,000 and visibility greater than 10 but the haze would have made you think otherwise.  It was very difficult to make out a clear horizon at times.  The air was smooth though and a decent 15-20 knot tail wind helped get us home a bit quicker.  Total flight time from Indy to Dover was about 4 hours.  We were going to stop in Conshocton but when we were on downwind they informed us that they were out of fuel.  We climbed back out and decided to stop in Wheeling, WV (KHLG) and add another airport to the logbook.  The rest of the flight was uneventful and we were back home by lunch time.

We had a great weekend!