Start your engines and meet at Exit 168 in T minus 1 hour. Please note, if you have to wait on your date, no gas station on Exit 168 has an ICEE machine, but the Shell Station's Race City has just about every memento related to NASCAR imagineable. We'll call my date Bobby because that seems to be the most fitting name for the setting. Bobby pulled up, I hopped in his ride and we made our way to the tracks. Just as excitement had peaked we pulled up only to find out that the last tour ended at 4:00pm. By our watches it was 4:45, and well by Bobby's it was 5:45 given that he was on Eastern time and all. Just before we resorted to pounding the steering wheel in anger a white pick-up truck appeared beside us (read Knight on a White Horse)...Dega Security. Bobby explains our devotion as fans and our devastation, so Ed (security) first confirms that we have our camera ready, and second commands, "follow me." Doors were opening. We made our way around the chain-linked fence, past the security gates, down through the tunnel and up to the most glorious vision that is...the Talladega Superspeedway. We drove past the garages, down the track and toward's the victory stage. Ed asked if we wanted our picture taken - duh - but mentioned that we couldn't reproduce any images. Then I asked him about reproducing in general... In an effort to honor his wishes, no pictures will be posted. Okay, maybe just this one:
Ed then asked if we wanted to go to the Finish Line...uh yeah. Pictures were taken at the finish line and as Ed put it, "Talladega looks perfect in the background." We thanked him profusely for his generosity and good deed, and in closing he said "Hey. I understand." I have to admit, I didn't understand at first, but now I totally get it. Ed loves his job. Ed loves that other people envy his job. Ed is, as Bobby likes to say, pretty awesome. We got back in the car and took our vicotry lap - said our own good byes to Ed and to the track, and made our way into town (downtown Dega, that is). Destination? Davey Allison Memorial Park.
Davey Allison Memorial Park is a beautiful patch of grass and trees with a circular walk of bronze reliefs of all of the major NASCAR players, and a brick path in the middle which contains bricks purchased by die-hard fans, chiseled with warm messages to their eternal heroes. A few favorites include:
While at the park we met the local lawnmower repairman who guided us to the best place to get a cold one. He recommended two Mexican restaurants: "Maragaritas is the cleanest. And there's one on the square, but I can't pronounce the name." We went to the one with the hard-to-pronounce name on the square. Please note, when making a small-town excursion on a Sunday, pack a cooler. No alcohol is served on Sundays. Since we didn't really want Mexican without a margarita we opted to end this red-neck rendezvous in style with fine dining at the Cracker Barrel, after browsing through the Country Store first...obvi. An order of chicken and dumplings, and one meatloaf dinner later, we rocked out in the famous CB rockers discussing our favorite part of the day. Bobby and I both agreed that if it weren't for Ed, none of this would have happened. We eventually parted ways, but not before we did some neckin' with my other Talladega Knight in the parking lot...Is there any other way to end it?
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