UMBC wins...at NASCAR?

So I lied about not having anything planned on this trip. The past three days have pretty much been all planned out. Why? Because I went to the NASCAR race at Talladega this afternoon. I wanted to do the whole call home and say "Guess where I'm at" thing with my parents. While I told a bunch of people I was going to the race, I kept it a secret from my parents, which was kind of hard because my dad's first reaction to my roadtrip was to check which races were along the way. This was my third race in the last four weeks, and this one, while it wasn't the most exciting, did have a great ending.

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I left the hotel north of Atlanta around 8am eastern time. That eastern time thing is important, because Alabama is in the central time zone. The race was at 2PM, but 2PM eastern time, not the central time I initially thought, which meant I left an hour later than I wanted to, but it wasn't too big of a deal since traffic was fine. It only took 2 hours to get to the track and park. Time zones are more

NASCAR!

confusing than I thought, and it will get even worse in the trip because Arizona decided to be weird and not do the whole daylight savings thing everyone else does.

Anyway, I did a lot of walking today. Talladega is the largest track on the circuit at 2.66 miles, and my seat was at the far end of the track. Not realizing how far it would be to my seats, I parked literally as far as I could since it was easy to get in and out of being right on the main road. In all, based on some measurements on Google maps, it looks like I walked at last 5.5 miles today.

First I went over to the Fan-Zone, which was kind of packed because of how they had it organized compared to other tracks I've been to. I got the requisite free Monster Energy drink, stopped at the Chevy booth to watch an interview with one of the drivers and then made my way out of there. I walked down to the gate down by my seat, but decided it was too early to enter, so I made my way over to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, which is on the track's property up by where I

The King, Richard Petty

parked. While it was an interesting museum, with a lot of cars on display, it was obvious that they really have updated it since the NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in Charlotte in 2010. They haven't

Thats not good

even had an induction in their hall of fame since 2013. Saw some cool and historic cars, which is what mattered.

If you ain't first, you're last.

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With about an hour and a half before race time, I grabbed a hot dog and made my way up to my seat.

Awesome, but expensive seats

I think I picked the best seats I could, being between the end of pit road and the start-finish line, which is down towards turn one. The race itself wasn't the greatest, partly because it was dominated by the same four cars from the Stewart-Haas team running single file at the lead. Talladega is known for its close, pack racing because of the strong effects from the draft. However, because of the way the aerodynamics of the cars were for this race, anytime cars would run side-by-side, they would lose considerable time to those running single-file. While there was a lot of side-by-side back in the pack, the four teammates just lined up and ran away from the pack.

A very late caution that sent the race into overtime changed everything, however. Everyone was very close on fuel but didn't pit, meaning that people were running out of fuel during the final two laps. This lead to a big wreck in turn two on the final lap, but fortunately, NASCAR let the leaders race back to the line. The leader for most of the race, Kurt Busch, also ran out of fuel going into turn three, allowing Aric Almirola to get by for the win, who won for the first time since 2014. You can see the finish here (not my video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNqyHsToLI

The cool thing about his win is that his crew chief (which is sort of a combination between lead engineer and head coach), John Klausmeier, is not only from Baltimore, but graduated from UMBC

U-M...

with a mechanical engineering degree in 2004. The UMBC Athletics twitter account even tweeted about it after the race. Does that officially make NASCAR a sport?

https://twitter.com/UMBCAthletics/status/1051598238510436352

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After the race, I made my way over to Birmingham, where I have a hotel reserved for the night. This hotel and the NASCAR ticket were the only things I reserved before the trip, getting them as soon as my vacation was approved. I had a salad for dinner at Jason's Deli, since I've had nothing but fried food and BBQ all weekend, and watched last week's episode of Doctor Who. As a side note, I like what they are doing with the new Doctor. She is kind of a British version of Amy Poehler's character from Parks and Rec, sprinkled with a bit of the tenth Doctor, who is my favorite Doctor. I think she is going to do a good job.

From here on out, my unplanned vacation really starts. I have two options for tomorrow. I could go north to Huntsville to see the NASA stuff up there, as recommended by a friend. But that is an all day thing and would put me further north than I want to be, probably spending the night in Memphis. Or I could go west towards Mississippi and Louisiana to see what is out there. I'm leaning towards doing the latter and possibly doing Memphis and NASA on the way back to Baltimore.