Redneck Woman

I'm not saying I'm a Redneck Woman because I hung out at a race track for 5 hours on my day off. I'm saying I'm a very RED neck woman because I literally have a red neck, arms, face, legs, any body part exposed for those 5 hours. Ouch.

Yup, the blue jay on Blue Jay Drive officially declared it summer today! With a high of 88, we will agree. It has arrived. (For today anyway.)

I knew we were in for a hot one when it was super muggy already at 8:30 during my morning run. That was not a good time. Came home and kitty was wedged up to the screen door, soaking in as much sunshine as possible. If there's anyone who can give me a run for loving the most sun, it's her. She was not too happy when we closed up the house later to turn the air-conditioning on!

Jim and Carter had tournament team baseball practice at 6 p.m. so they wisely stayed home in the A/C and I was off to the races by myself. Don't worry, I've got my "racing family" of fans we always sit by so I knew I wouldn't be alone. Plus, my in-laws were going.

The races started at 3 p.m. but the time trials were at 1:15 p.m. So I got there at 1:10 p.m., just so I wouldn't miss our nephew Colin's qualifying. After taking some sketchy photos last week during the night race, I wanted to get some good photos today since it was guaranteed sunny out.

Before the race, 10 lucky young fans got to meet Colin and all the Super Late Model drivers and give them high-fives.

There's his new #44 car! We were pretty excited he qualified with the 3rd-fastest time. The race was 100 laps and, since I was there shortly after 1 p.m., I was quite toasted -- neck and all -- by the time his race started. I ended up moving around taking pictures to get some good angles. Unfortunately, Colin bumped into someone after a crash not involving him, and he got some damage.

You can see the damage here. He ended up leaving the race for some other mechanical reason. So we have another DNF (did not finish) on his record this year. It turned out to be a bad day for a lot of drivers. Of the 24 cars in that same race, only 15 ended up finishing it! Weird. Must have been the heat!

Despite my sunburn pain, we all trekked down to the Pits afterward to get his autograph (hey, the family still has to ask!).

Then I came home and took a cool shower and yes, you don't have to guess... enjoyed just a spoonful or two of a cool treat! Ahh, summer...