rockover

My gawd, it seems like we've been here forever. We have this RV rental and have spent more time sleeping in it in one night, than we have spent not sleeping overall. But, hey, that's the problem with being celebrities, even if your fans don't know who you are.

Our Thursday 5am live-on-camera appointment got moved to today (Friday) at 5:30am. Patrick must have gotten the short straw. He met us around 5am and escorted us to the tent where the live interviews were going on. Patrick, by the way was our point of contact (can we call him our personal assistant?) for Bank of America. I'm pretty sure he works for Octagon, a marketing firm that handles the marketing duties for Bank of America and other companies and people.
Here is the station that taped our 1 minute segment, but since it was live, don't count on finding us: http://www.wbtv.com/, They do have an article mentioning a Very Special Person from across the country that will attend the race, but that turns out to be someone named Cindy McCain.

I didn't do much today. Couldn't get into the garage area because I wore shorts instead of long pants. That's a no-no for garage access. I knew that yesterday, but forgot today; boo hoo.
After I changed clothes, I sat in the stands and used my binoculars to spy on Azucena, while she was in the pits taking pictures of the practice and Nationwide qualifying (we have a "cold pass" which means once practice started, I wasn't allowed back into the Garage area. Since she was already in the garage, they didn't bother trying to kick her out. There are too many people there to check badges). She was walking around with a Mother/Son couple she met up with (Zela and Eric). Eric apparently has connections with one of the Nationwide teams and gets instant access with just a phone call. I think he has better contacts than us.

Later that evening (right before the Nationwide race started), with our new found connections, we hung around the 88 garage which is sponsored by the Navy. Azucena walked right up and talked to the commander of the group. She also talked to a few Navy crewmen and got her picture taken with one of them, then she ran off to get an autograph. "I got it!! I got it!!", she says proudly a minute later.
Then we started dodging race cars as they were backing them out of the garage to line them up on pit row. Since I almost got run over, I demanded an autograph from the driver. I guess it didn't work since they just chuckled and kept going. Driver was nowhere to be found anyway.
In the pits, right before the race started, I was introduced to an 88 crew member, he says. "Hi. Don't drop the flag!!!". Then walks off. It was getting busy so he couldn't stick around to talk.
We hung around the pits for about 1/2 the race, which went extremely long: two rain delays and a few accidents that took awhile to clean up. Race started at 8pm and ended around 12:15am, about 1 1/2 hours longer than normal.
We finished the race in the grand stands. Didn't get back to the camper until 12:45. But since we don't have anything planned until after noon on Saturday, we get a chance to sit and relax for a bit (or sleep). At least until 11 anyway.