NASCAR goes to Charlotte NC in May for two of their biggest races. The first is the All-Star Race. This year that occurred on May 16th, which was a very special night for me personally. My guy, Tony Stewart #14 (OfficeDepot/OldSpice/Chevy) crossed the line for his first win as an Owner/Driver. Only the 2nd guy to do this since the All-Star Race began.

I don’t want to make it sound like we didn’t see and talk to some nice people. We did. But they were few and far between. The most disappointing part of the entire experience was what wasn’t there! Never again will we go back. What a waste of time.

Sunday night Nascar held one of it’s premier races, known today as the All-Star Race. While the race has gone through many names (4 to be exact), it has a great deal of history from its venue to its winners. Here’s a few facts about the race that might interest Nascar fans.

– The All-Star raced stared in 1985 when it was known simply as “The Winston”, after Nascar’s sponsor Winston cigarettes.
– It has always been held at Charlotte/Lowes Motor Speedway, with the exception of the 2nd race which was held at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
– The driver to win the first race in the series was Darrell Waltrip for Junior Johnson Racing.
– One of our household favorites, Dale Jr. won in 2000 his rookie year,
– Another favorite Ryan Newman won in 2002
– And my most favorite Tony Stewart won in 2009

Now for the Most, Fastest, Slowest and Winning-est
– Most wins go to Dale Sr  and Jeff Gordon with 3 wins each
– Mark Martin, Jimmy Johnson and Davey Allison have each won 2 times
– Davey Allison is the only driver to hold back to back wins

– In 1985 Darrell’s prize was $20k, the 2nd race won by Bill Elliott gave him a purse of $240k
– The purse prize has floated back and forth between $200 and $300k for most of it’s history.
– It hit 500k in 2000 when Dale Jr. won the prize
– It slowly increased over the next 2 years and hit $1 million in 2003. Jimmy Johnson took that home. Officially he won $1,017,604, Tony’s purse in 2009 was $1,033,656.
– The highest purse to date was $1,101,325 taken home by Mark Martin on his 2nd time winning the all star race

– The highest average speed for an All-Star race was 185mph, in 2001. Jeff Gordon won that race.
– The slowest race was in 2007, 89mph (geez..was the whole thing under caution?) Kevin Harvick took that trophy.

– Chevy has 14 wins, Ford 9, Dodge and Pontiac 1 a piece
– The winning-est team, no surprise here, Hendrick with 6 wins. Roush and Childress have 3 each.
– Geoff Bodine Racing (1994) and Stewart-Hass Racing (2009) are the only owner/driver teams to have won the All-Star race.

– Conspicuously missing from the list, Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota.

5:30am and we’re up after getting home at midnight and making it to bed at 1am.  Why the rise and shine at the crack of dawn? Well it’s race weekend, what else are you going to do? We made it the track by 7:30am. We were directed to our tailgating space, about 4 rows from the main gate of the track. A great spot! By 10am we had the grill fired up and breakfast was on the skillet.

It was touch and go through out the day in dealing with the weather. But we kept busy by shopping, keeping up on the Caps win over the Penguins and of course grilling bbq chicken. Finally by 5pm it was time to pack it up and head to our seats with fingers crossed that the rain would stop long enough to get the race in. Thank the rain Gods who covered the track with a giant umbrella and allowed the jet dryers clear the surface and keep it clear for the race. It pour down rain north and south of the track. But some how missed us, just long enough to get the 400 laps on the books.

And what a race it was! Watching Tony and Ryan constantly moving up into the top 10 after each pit stop was exciting. Along with everyone else in our section, we were thrilled watching Jimmy Johnson spin out in turn 2. The last 20 laps kept us on the edge of our seat as Tony moved up into 2nd and Ryan moved into 4th.  Not sure a few additional would have helped Tony catch up to the leader, but Jeff Burton sure was making a run at trying to take 2nd away from him. So I’m glad it finished the way it did.

I’m so proud of Stewart-Haas Racing. It’s great to see Tony and Ryan in the top 12 in points. For a long time we thought Ryan was a much better driver than what his stats were showing. He just needed a good crew, good engines and a chance to put his talent on the track. It also says a lot about Tony and his ability to turn a company around and make it competitive. Wow. The Munchkin and I couldn’t be happier with our boys.

I’ve been watching racing since I was 12/13 years old. I’ve been to Bristol and Richmond. EW and I hold season tickets to the Richmond races. I’d love to go to Darlington and Charlotte. And of course I’d love to go to Daytona. My family is from Tennessee and I had an uncle who worked for Goodyear. Because of him, I was able to get into the track before race day and see the place. My guy at the time was Darrell Waltrip. He was a Tennessee boy and I was up for that. On one of those Bristol visits, my uncle took me to the in field. Standing 15 feet away from us was DW. He was talking to a bunch of reporters, but he caught sight of my uncle and waved. Then he yelled, “You need something?” My uncle said, I just wanted one of your biggest fans to see you. DW waved his hands at the reporters as if he was dismissing them from his royal court and said “Heck I can talk to these guys anytime.” and walked away to meet me. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re 12 years old; that was a big deal. I’m sure he doesn’t remember doing it. But I sure remember it.

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