On our vacation we attended the Maple Grove Toyo Tires Nationals. This is a NHRA Top Fuel drag racing event. We attended on Friday and Sunday. Friday is a day of qualifications of the pro classes and also sportsman ranks. Dare i say that I enjoyed this day more than the final elimination round on Sunday? Previously I could not understand why you would want to attend a race and not know who had won. However, you see a lot more racing and have a lot less crowd on a qualification day. We even got to see the dragsters run at night something that we have always wanted to see. There is also plenty of general admission seating on Friday. This photo is of Tim Wilkerson's funny car running in the final qualification run of the day.
Jack enjoyed spending time in the Powerade Fan Zone , which involves racing a video game to get qualified for a shot of racing in a funny car simulator. This is typically something that we would not have checked out on Sunday because the crowd is just too large! I actually was the 15th highest qualifier of the day. The top 3 got free tickets to Sunday. The emcee of the fan zone was a lot of fun and got the crowd involved.
On Sunday we started the day by arriving early and attending the Racer's Church. RFC (Racer's for Christ). Church was at 8:00 in the hospitality area between the Cat dragster of Rod Fuller and the Matco Tools dragster of Antron Brown. We heard a great message delivered by Chris Rivas ( Pro Stock Motorcycle driver). The congregation was filled with fans and competiers alike.
After church was over we headed to Del Worsham's pit to meet my favorite Blogger of all time Bob Wilber. See his blog here http://blogs.nhra.com/nhrablogs.asp?blog=csk He was very nice but did not have a lot of time to talk. I think he must be a very busy guy because we tried to catch up with him several times on Friday and he was not to be found. Bob returns every email you send him so I admire his dedication. My husband and I also finally found the Del Worsham t shirts we were trying to buy all weekend. I looked in the Fram trailer and could not see the Del shirt displayed. Finally after the 3rd round on Sunday I decided to ask them and sure enough they had them.
Then we met our friends the Mahoney's. Ray , Bev, and Shawn. We walked the pits with them and then settled in to watch the races. For some reason the day seemed to fly by (maybe that had something to do with no rain delay like last year) The kids didn't seem to have enough time to collect autographs. (much more time for that when it is raining) (I'm certainly not wishing for rain I'm just saying...) While I would have liked to see Del Worsham win we were quite happy to see Fast jack Beckman in the winner's circle at the end of the day. We hung around after the races and had Jack Beckman sign autographs for Jack and Shawn.
After this we headed back to our campsite and the legendary Tree house cabin we stayed in!
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