This past weekend, Bryan's Dad and Wendy came to visit us. We had a great visit with them. We took in the Fort Worth Stockyards, the McKinney Square, Bryan's half-marathon, and an Indy race at Texas Motor Speedway.
The Indy race was awesome! A friend from Bryan's work got us awesome tickets to watch the race from their condo. Our tickets included passes to the garage during pre-race tune-up and inspections as well as access to the pits before the race. Amazing! The cars come in on big 18 wheelers. They ride at the top of the truck and they lower them down on lifts.
Here I am beside the official pace car.
Check out these tires! These have been used...even in the picture you can kinda tell how chewed up and blistered they are.
Here's Bryan beside the #12 car (Will Power's car). We always cheer for Will Power.
Here's a close-up of the Andretti logo on Marco Andretti's car. One of the lady's in the condo got to ride with Marco in the parade lap on the track before the race.
Indy car races are supposedly a lot more fan-friendly than Nascar. The entire field of drivers had an autograph signing session out in front of the speedway for anyone to come get signatures. We decided not to wait in the line, but I got pictures of Helio and Will Power.
By one of the merchandise trailers we did get Will Power and Ryan Briscoe's autographs on our race tickets.
Back in the garage area, here is Will Power's car going in for pre-race inspection.
Here's a pic of Bryan in the pit.
Look at all these pre-race tires. One of the pit crew guys told us they could use as many as 9 sets during the race, but they were expecting to use 5 or 6 sets.
And, here is the Sonny's car getting gas from the big tanker right before the race. Little did we know, he would go on to win the race (too bad I forgot his name...Ha!). We had a great time at the race. Checking out the pits/garage and sitting in the air-conditioned condo enjoying delicious food definitely spoiled us to how all sporting events should be attended.
