Orlando Bingles’ 2011 Summer Road Trip – Day 23
by Bingle on Sep.04, 2011, under Richard Bingle Family
Amber and Alyssa had never been to a NASCAR Sprint Cup race, so we figured we’d get to the track plenty early so that we would have lots of time to tour the midway and the souvenir rigs before heading into the stands to our seats. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Lee had other plans. Outer rain bands ahead of Lee brought the rain in early afternoon, sometimes light but also (unfortunately) sometimes heavy. The amount of rain made it obvious that the race wouldn’t start on time but we made our way to our seats in turn 3 to wait it out.
We probably should have assumed by the complete lack of track drying efforts prior to the scheduled start time and no cars out on the grid that there wouldn’t be any racing that day. In fact, the only vehicles that ever made it out on to the track were six unimpressive jet dryers, several tow trucks, flatbeds, and pickups, and a couple of pace cars. The track was almost dry despite the light mist that never really ever went away until about 9:15 p.m. when the rains began again in earnest almost instantly wiping out the previous hour and a half of track drying work. With the forecast for Monday (Labor Day) being 100% chance of rain throughout the day and the possibility of tornados, NASCAR decided to push the race out to Tuesday morning.
Since the race had been scheduled as a night race, we’d already booked the motel we’d stayed at the night before for Sunday night, so as soon as we made our soggy way back to where we had parked the van we called the motel and booked yet another night so that we could (attempt to) see the race on Tuesday.