The Voss Family: Brickyard 400

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had 2 free tickets to the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago. My friend Karen and I took the 12 hour drive to our hotel that was in Illinois just across the border from Indiana. It took FOREVER to get through Iowa. We arrived at the hotel about 9pm, checked in and went to bed. We needed to get up by 3am central time, 4am eastern (the track is eastern time zone but we were staying in central time zone). We still had another 90 minute drive to the track. Also we wanted to get there early to get a good parking spot and check things out. The drive into Indianapolis was good. We got about 2-3 blocks from the track when we were at a stand still on the road. The parking lot that we were originally going to park in, since it was free, was a long ways away. Since the speedway is in the middle of town there are house just across the road from the track. We stopped at one to ask the price and it was $30 to park for the day. I thought that was not bad so we went around the block and found one for $20 if you were blocked in by one car or $30 if you wanted on the curb. We took the $20 and were soon blocked in. That was ok, we were not going anywhere anyway. So we parking in someones lawn. There were people tailgating everywhere, it was a site to see.

There were many vendors per say along the road so we checked them out and bought some souvenirs and gifts. We then walked back to the van and rested a little and ate before heading into the track. I have been to the Kansas Speedway 3 times before this so I am used to the rules there. Compared to Indy, Kansas is VERY strict. You can bring anything into the track as long as it is not glass. Coolers, backpacks, chairs, etc. It was awesome!!! Once we walked around the track for awhile we realized that we could just walk to the infield, this was incredible since you need special tickets to get to the infield at Kansas. Most of the driver's trailers (merchandise) were in the infield, as well as a stage, a museum, the drivers haulers, and the garages. You could get close to the garages and such. Then we kept walking and realized that we could go walk on the track. This was the coolest so far. We walked on the exit of pit road and up the track. We could then look down the front stretch.

After that is was a long walk back to our seats. It got pretty warm but at least the humidity was low. Our seats were GREAT. We were in turn 3. For those of you who do not know this track is 2.5 miles long. You cannot see the whole track from any point. We could see the cars coming out of turn 2, down the back stretch, turn 3 and 4.
I thought the race was AWESOME despite all the cautions that NASCAR threw. Jr actually was doing good for awhile was that was nice to see. Karen's driver, Micheal Waltrip, was in an accident on lap 4 so she did not get to see him much.

Despite the 300,000+ people that were there it was easy to get in and out. It did not take long to get back on the Interstate and head for our hotel. On Monday morning we started the 12 hour ride back home. My ultimate conclusion is that I will probably never go back the Kansas Speedway but I am already planning the trip to Indy next year. ANY TAKERS!!!!!

Other Pictures!!!