Tom is a 25+ year resident of Germantown and the surrounding community. He currently lives in Hubertus with his wife and two small kids on a hobby farm near Bark Lake. Tom's blog will likely not save the world, but hopefully, you'll get some enjoyment from his ramblings.
I just spent another weekend in the “Irish Hills” of Brooklyn, Michigan, attending the NASCAR Citizens Bank 400 race at Michigan International Speedway. I say “another weekend”, as this was my 22nd year going to the race. I attend each year’s race with a rather large group of friends, all of varying ages, and we come from all different parts of Wisconsin. This makes for a very interesting and entertaining trip each year!
Highlights of race weekend this year included:
- The massive amounts of discussion over Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s announcement last week that he is going to race for Hendrick Motorsports next year. This proved for some pretty good jokes, none of which are tasteful enough to be mentioned here.
- My sister TJ, and her husband Rick, drove up from Ohio to hang out with our group this year. It was great to see them and spend some quality R&R time together, as we never seem to get to visit very often since state lines divide us. We also realized at the race that Rick sort of looks like Jack Roush when he wears that goofy looking straw hat!
- Our realization that NASCAR is truly a redneck sport. You only have to walk around with 200,000 NASCAR fans for a short time to come to this conclusion. Now I’m not throwing jabs at NASCAR fans, because I am one of them too, and maybe I have a little more redneck in me that I’d like to admit. I clearly realized this at 8am of race day as I was sitting in a lawn chair in a grass field at the racetrack, barefoot, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, smoking cigarettes, eating beef jerky, drinking Jim Beam, watching my sister use a grill to make eggs, listening to my friends discuss which promotional trailer was giving out the most tobacco chew for free and talking about my trucks exhaust system with some guy I don’t even know. Now if that ain’t redneck, I reckon’ I don’t know what is!?
- Back at the hotel after the race, I did an awesome belly flop into a whirlpool full of people I don’t know. Well, at least I didn’t know them before the belly flop, but now I do.
- The race itself, as always, was the best highlight of all. Even after attending countless races at multiple tracks over the years, nothing gives me the goose bumps quite like the first green flag lap of a NASCAR race. A combination of the smell of racing fuel, the roaring engine noise, the cheering crowd, the jets overhead, a beer in my hand and the wind rush that’s created from the mere speed of 43 cars almost brings a tear to the eye. Wow, I really am a redneck!
And if attending Michigan this year wasn’t enough, this particular redneck will also be at the Milwaukee Mile with a few friends this coming weekend for the Busch race on Saturday night. Hope to see you there. I’ll be the one with the goose bumps.
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish Proverb
