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| Finally! Race day!! |
As arrived Sunday morning, I went straight to the Neon Garage to find out how the #10 GoDaddy car was. I found out the night before, Pole-Sitter, Jeff Gordon, had wrecked his car with Danica's during that final practice I forgot about. On the long walk there, I got a ton of evil looks from people. People who were assuming Danica wrecked Jeff. And considering this was probably the last LVMS race for Jeff since he's on his "retirement tour", that didn't help the situation at all either. Because of the wreck, Gordon needed to go to a backup car and start from the rear where Danica's car just had cosmetic damage.
When I arrived at the #19 garage stall, I saw the #10 GoDaddy Chevy team adding new body panels and body wrapping for the race:
Later, I met up with Nicholle and Lori and found out Danica tweeted about the gift bag Nicholle made for Danica's dog, Dallas:
The bag I happen to take a photo of Danica holding Friday morning. My first photo of the weekend! Nicholle was giddy with happiness. Nicholle and Lori also brought two friends to race day, Kim and Sylvia. The plan was to sneak Kim into the garage area so she can experience what it's like before she moves to SoCal. Success! It was cool being the "tour guide" and watching them enjoy taking photos with the #10 GoDaddy car as it was finished with the repairs.
While we were doing the whole tourist thing, I noticed a woman wearing a team shirt from Danica's first major race team, Rahal Letterman, when Danica first raced Indycar in 2005. She was accompanied by a gentleman who seemed very familiar, but I couldn't figure out who he was. Anywho, as she was taking photos of the #10 GoDaddy Chevy, I told her I liked her shirt and that I had a replica signed by Danica. I showed both her and that gentleman a photo of my signed shirt. I was confused when he said, "Yup, that's her signature." I was like, "Umm, yeah, I know. I'm like DanicaFanboy...". He lowers his sunglasses to reveal his eyes and whispers to me, "I'm her father." I was blown away! All I could say to him was, "Yes. Yes you are." with a smile. I handed Lori my phone and asked her, "Could you take a photo of me with this gentleman?" She was like, "Umm, sure." Not yet knowing why.
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| Geronimo. Geronimo. Geronimo! Danica's father, T.J. Patrick! |
It was ironic since the last time I had Lori take a photo with my phone. It was for the first "DanicAl" photo, and it came out blurry. This time, it all was perfect. To meet the man who created "the phenomenon"...literally. It was his love for racing, and putting both his daughters in go-carts while they were young, that started it all. I was fortunate to be the only "tourist" there who knew who he was since there were a lot of other tourists and media there at that garage.
Lori asked me, who he was and I whispered to her, "He is Danica's father." We whispered it quietly to the rest of our little group and they, too, took photos with him. The curiosity started to spread and after Lori, Nicholle, Kim, and Sylvia were finished with their photos with him, he quietly started to leave. On his exit, Mr. Patrick and I nodded to each other and I thanked him.
We, then, headed back to the Neon Garage where I met and got a photo with Fox Sports 1 personality, Danielle Trotta (photo coming soon!). Damn...she is friggin' beautiful! From the Neon Garage, we headed to Pit Lane where we watched the Budweiser clydesdales trot passed as we stood in front of Tony Stewart's #14 Mobil 1 team pit stall. Then on our way to the start / finish line on the track for Driver Intros.
After Driver Intros, our little Danica fan group split up and headed to our seats for the race. I headed up to the Clubhouse Suite where I got situated and ready to watch the race. Good timing, too...they were serving lunch.
