Tony's last race in the Home Depot car

Sunday, November 16

Up semi-early again...had to catch the charter bus to the racetrack! We arrived safely at the track and immediately headed for pit road. I was on the lookout for Tony Stewart, because I was sure he wouldn't stand me up two days in a row!

Terri and I walked around pit road. Terri wanted to get some photos of Jeff Gordon's pit and car for her grandson and I, of course, was looking for big orange, The Home Depot #20.

Orange County Choppers had some of their bikes there. I took some photos of some of them and of Jason Pohl and Rick Petko of OCC. Paul Sr. and Mikey were there later, but I didn't know that until I went to the OCC site to check the spelling of Jason and Rick's last names. Damn!

We walked on the track for a bit, took some more pictures and then realized we hadn't had anything to eat, so headed off of pit road to eat. We then watched some of the SPEED Race Day Show live and some live interviews on the Coca-Cola stage with Elliot Sadler (a very handsome man) and the 2008 Nationwide Series Champion Clint Bowyer.

Pre-race activities, driver intros, card stunt, invocation, anthem, flyover, gentleman start your engines!!!! Woo-hoo, it's finally race time!!!

It's Homestead, of course you're going to see the Rousch cars up front, but wait, I see big orange making his way through traffic. Here kitty, kitty, kitty! The kitty's name was Matt Kenseth, and big orange went by...he's in the lead, I'm pumped. YES! Tony is finally going to win a race I'm at...and how cool that it's his last race in the Home Depot car for Joe Gibbs Racing. I quickly turn the scanner back to Smoke's team channel only to hear Zippy (Tony's crew chief) tell him that they'll be 15 laps short on fuel. My heart sunk and I was praying for another caution.

I was thinking to myself, can someone go find Kurt Busch and see if he wouldn't mind hitting the wall again? I also tried to keep an eye out for Juan Pablo Montoya, surely he'd be taking someone out! Nope, no such luck for me or the #20. An 9th place finish.

Tony and I weren't able to connect this weekend. Maybe his cell phone was broke. :) I guess we'll meet up in Vegas.

And yes, I'll be posting some pictures!