Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Races

It's been a busy week with more to come, and that, along with the lack of anything really interesting to post about, explains the lack of bloggery.

Friday and Saturday nights, though, I did something I've never done before. I went to the races.

No, not horse races (although I've never been to the nearby horse races either) but dirt track automotive races. Specifically, I was there to cheer on the men of my other family.

W, S, and J all race in the econo or hobby truck divisions so at the nearby track that means they all race in the same race. Imagine, if you will, a Farmgirl, hanging out in the pits, up near the fence of the back side of the track, watching the cars go, feeling the engines roar (believe me, you feel the roar of those engines...) and screaming out "Go W Go S Go J!" as her friends all speed by, roughly bumper to bumper.

Yeah, eventually I gave up and cheered for W since he was in the lead of the guys I cared about on Friday night.

Last night though, there was an extra special bit of redneck fun. See, that particular track has a "race" called Anything Goes. Basically, you scrape together whatever car you can, load up yourself and a passenger, arm the passenger with squirt guns or water balloons, and go participate in what really amounts to a demolition derby with liquid filled projectiles. To win, you have to knock over an old Ford van, and every race weekend that the van survives, the bounty on it goes up. The bounty is sitting at four hundred dollars, now.

There are no cautions, no restarts, and no real standard for the cars, as far as I can tell.

Oh, and did I forget to mention they soak down the track and turn it into a slimy, soupy, slippery mess for this race?

Gawd, it looks like fun!

If I had the disposable income, I'd totally have W and S help me put together a car for it. Alas, I don't, so a car to go bang into other cars with in the mud will have to stay on the back burner, although I may see if I can talk the Fam into donating one of the old junker cars for the project and talk W and S into building it for themselves, if I can ride shotgun.

Who says rednecks don't know how to have fun?