Road Trip to the All-Star Race (May 21, 2016)

Fun trip the last weekend of my vacation, went to the Nascar All-Star Race in Concord, NC. That used to be where I lived prior to the transfer for the job from there.
This is Kannapolis, NC which was the home town of Dale Earnhardt Sr. There is a statue of him there that I have posted many times. Here is the NC Research Center. It was supposed to be a real job creator, did not really reach the promise but some nice buildings there. This town was formerly also the home of Pillowtex which employed a few thousand back in the day.  

Going to the racetrack there were a few displays such as this one by Chevy, and Toyota had a few. A lot of changes to the track over the years. Many of the bleacher sections have been torn down (the entire back half in fact) and a lot of things have been scaled back. Former race week (the 600 is in just a few days) there was a lot of displays to see...even a few jet aircraft (military) from time to time. That is no longer the case. However it was fun to wander around and see the things that were on display as well as the people which are always interesting.

There was a huge, and I mean huge rainstorm prior to the race which cancelled qualifying for the All Star event. However, they expected that (been raining a lot here in Richmond, and so it is the case in Concord). There was a fleet of jet dryers, some brought in from other tracks.
Got off later than expected but they did get the race underway. The prerace events were pretty cool, there is a giant tv screen across from the seats (still one of the largest in the world) and there were certainly a lot of fireworks to be seen. Different seats from last year but liked them.  

As for the race there were three segments: two 50 lap portions, and the final 13 lap finish. It to me was a better race than last year in that cars in the previous year basically played follow the leader and in this one there was some passing, including a rather thrilling one which decided the race. Stayed for the fireworks and the burnout at the end.
The police and the track did a great job of getting us all out. The race was over a bit after midnight and got back to my son's apartment right around 2am. It was a fantastic time and sure feel lucky to make this event again this year.