Even though today I felt compelled to tell you how I felt watching the closing laps of the 1998 Brickyard 400 on Monday evening on ESPN Classic replay, I have some more pressing news to tell you about.
Flash back to last Thursday when I (re-)told you the story of the 2003 Brickyard 400. The same race I had planned to once again watch from my couch and yearn for the days when I attended the Brickyard 400 and watched the best in the business duke it out.
Although this year I have been planning on a return trip, unlike years in the past, I have no idea where I’ll be sitting come raceday.
Until now.
So let’s go back to 8:45 last night. I receive a call from my dad as I sat on the couch watching some TV. “Listen to B-105 at 9 o’clock and they’re giving away tickets to the Brickyard,” he told me. I replied, “If I win them will you go?” He said, simply, “If you win, we can go to the race.”
For the past two weeks I have been hounding my dad to join me in a trip to Indianapolis as he has done every year. This year he has been skeptical of coming back, worn out and wearied of the competition cautions and not being able to really see the whole race. My pull on him has been the fact that it’s the one weekend all year he really gets to spend with me and my brother, and now that we’re both in college, he should try to spend as much time with us as he can.
In 2005 we got our pictures taken with Richard and Kyle Petty (above) and with 2003 Cup Champ Matt Kenseth (below)
It’s the one thing I’ve come to realize that I love more than anything about the Brickyard weekend, the ability to hang out with my brother and dad, and just talk about everything. I think I noted that last year in the “Brickyard Through My Eyes” countdown (which should have won a Pulitzer by the way!).
In 2007 we visited the Toyota display for this photo (I'm on the left, my brother is in the middle and my dad stands on the right)
I took this winning tickets thing very seriously. As soon as he told me about it I had two radios running on WUBE, (B-105) the prime country station here in Cincinnati, my house phone and cell phone sitting next to me, and my laptop hooked up to the internet in case I needed to look up a song.
At 9 o’clock the top five most requested songs got on, and I diligently took notes on my note pad. When it got to time to call I had two phones up to my ear. I got a busy signal. I hung up and redialed; busy signal again. Then the phone rang once…twice…and went silent.
I was afraid I’d just have to keep trying and then Jesse Tack—B 105’s DJ—answered the phone. Cue the kid in a candy shop I always talk about, I had just won tickets to the 2009 Brickyard 400.
It took everything in my right mind not yell. I restrained myself from screaming in the phone. I didn’t want to sound like a ‘doofus’ on the radio. As my dad would say, “Act like you’ve been there before.” Only thing is, I’ve never won anything on the radio.
I guess that old song came true. Last night, all the luck was in my circle of the planet. Now, I get to enjoy the Brickyard 400 with my dad and brother from Indianapolis, live and in person—just the way I want to.
So, just as it was in 2003, this Brickyard will be a pleasant surprise. I’ll enjoy every bit of it. Whether we’ll go up for the weekend or drive back and forth is still up in the air, but I do know that the most important part of the weekend, the plans for the 160 lap, 400 mile, Allstate 400 at the Brickyard are taken care of.
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Thanks for reading this story, and I’ll save the 1998 Brickyard 400 reaction for later, possibly even tomorrow. I know Friday and possibly Saturday I’ll be checking in with Kentucky Speedway information as the Camping World Truck Series (that still looks wrong, it should be Craftsman, but I digress) and ARCA RE/MAX Series take to the 1.5 mile oval in Sparta, Kentucky.
*Many thanks go out to B-105 for giving me the opportunity to win tickets and of course for answering my phone call and not everyone else’s! Sometimes I guess I get some pay back for being such a nice guy. Check out Jesse Tack’s blog post with yours truly mentioned on the bottom! http://www.b105.com/blog/WUBE/blogs/index.php?blog=9&p=684&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
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