Infineon Raceway

Infineon Raceway at dawn

Back in June, Terry and I were invited to join the Golden Gate Racing Team's second car, the #31 Bay Biodiesel team, for the NASCAR Camping World West race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma CA. Needless to say we were in 7th heaven the whole weekend!

The #31 car is owned and driven by Pat O'Keefe who is a really nice guy. While I was again unofficial picture taker, I also got to help out by pushing the stock car up and down pit road many times. And I mean many times. It was hot, it was tiring, but boy was it fun.

Terry was really enjoying himself and helped out with getting the car ready for inspection and also pushing the cars around to tech or to get gas.

I never imagined how much work actually went into getting the cars ready for inspections, practices and then for the race. When a race car didn't qualify or they crashed, I really felt bad for the teams because I now know how much time and effort went into each car. It was heart breaking.

The Camping World West race was held on Saturday, but Sunday was the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, so while we were working on the CWW cars, the Sprint cars were going through their practices. We saw quite a few well-know drivers, and even had close encounters with a couple of them....

While were pushing the #31 car through pit road, Terry was like 12" from the window of the#24 car when Jeff Gordon waved at Terry. Of course I was so busy pushing the car I didn't get an opportunity to take a picture of that but I did get a nice shot of the #24 on pit road.

I had a very close encounter with Tony Stewart; while walking back up to the hauler there was a pole on my left side. Tony was walking down from the opposite direction and squeezed between me and the pole and brushed my left arm. OMG! It was very exciting. (And Tony is quite handsome.) Shhhh. ;-)

Luckily for Junior, and Terry, I did not see him in person. But we did come close to 'bumping' into each other at one point. We were, once again, pushing a car down pit road to tech when we were suddenly stopped by an official. And 'swoosh'! Junior drives right down in front of us and out of pit road. Darn it.

Now all of this was wonderful but I think the most important and even more exciting celebrity of all was....

Guy Fieri from the Food Network!

Terry really, really loves this guy. He watches all his shows over and over and over and over....

I guess you can call him a fan. LOL

Ok, so back to racing business....

I have some pictures of the #21 and #31 teams before the start of the race.

Keith and Terry talkin' racin'

Terry, Pat and Keith

Chris and Blake

Chris, Josh, Mark, Lee and Terry



Pit Stop for the #21

Pit Stop for the #31

The pit boxes for both cars were side-by-side so this made pit stops easier for the crew.

The bosses calling the shots...Steve

and Jim

Blake is a Richard Childress Development Driver so the #21 team had the pleasure of Mr. Childress' company during the race.

After the race.... I can't recall what positions Blake and Pat started and finished at, but if you really want to know, just look at the Camping World West website for the standings. The whole experience lasted three days but the memories are for a lifetime.

I'd like to give a very special thank you to Steve and Jim for the pleasure of a 'Beyond Front Row' experience in racing. Yep, we definately got the bug now!