Observations through 5 year old eyes.

By Mark Young

Michigan International Speedway is my home track and each June race we make our annual pilgrimage to partake in the event.  The fact that it is Father's Day makes it even more fun to some as Dad's take their children to the race with them.  This year it was my middle child Zachary's turn to go to the race with me and I made it a point to pay more attention to the little things he saw that excited him, and see things from the perspective of a five year old.  Let's just say that this race was the most exciting event I have been to ever because I lived it through him.

Now let me set this up a little bit.  Zachary is five years old, loves racing, but has never been to a race of any kind.  He knows the majority of the driver's numbers as well as their sponsors so he is pretty knowledgeable regarding the basics of the sport.  We bought Zac a disposable camera and let him take pictures at will so he could make a display for school in the fall.

Zac couldn't believe how big everything was, specially the track.  As we walked toward the tunnel he kept saying "WOW" about how tall the bleachers were.  After walking under the tunnel, and playing echoes for a minute or two" he looked around and yelled "COOL!!!"  Zac was like a kid in a candy store on pit road.  He would yell out the driver or sponsor he saw as we walked past the pit stalls.  We had to stop and get our picture taken in front of Junior's war wagon, Zac couldn't understand why Junior wasn't there......

Our next stop on pit road was the Fed Ex stall to visit with TR.com blogger Dennis Terry from "Over The Wall".  I have e-mailed with Dennis before but never met him so that was cool.  Dennis was awesome and showed Zachary around the pit stall and then let us sit on the wagon while Dennis and I talked racing.  Their stall was right next to the roadway that the cars were pushed down to get to pit road from the garage.  We have several nice pictures of the back ends of some cars and front ends of other cars as Zac clicked off a dozen or shots from on top the pit box.

At MIS you are allowed to walk out onto the track near the start/finish line when you have pit passes.  Zac couldn't believe how steep the front stretch was!!  I got a picture of him doing a snow angel on the checkered line, I am going to send it to Kurt Busch because that boy needs lessons.  We stood there for a bit and I watched his eyes circle the track taking it all in.

After the pit road experience and a long walk back to the car to join our group for lunch and to pack our coolers we made it to our seats in the 6th row.  Zac swears Junior was waving at him during the parade laps in the pickup trucks during introductions and thanks to the fans around us in the seats they insured him that was exactly what happened.  The fly-by scared the crap out of him (I didn't tell him what was coming) but loved the fireworks and seeing all the teams lined up in formation along pit road.

As the race started I didn't even look at the cars going by, I was too busy watching this little boy jump up and down on the bleachers screaming at the cars going by.  I walked him down against the fence during a restart so he could get a true sense of the speed and what 180+ mph was like.  At lap 100 I looked down to check on him to find him sound asleep!!  A special thanks to my friends from Windsor, Canada sitting behind us who helped me keep him in the shade and cool while sleeping.  Zac woke up in time to see the end and was a bit sad that it was over.

I know this blog was a bit long and not quite like the stuff I ordinarily write following a race but this wasn't an ordinary race for me.  This was by far the best day of NASCAR racing I have ever had.  To see the true excitement and anticipation in my son's eyes as he watched things going on around him I realized that I need to pay a little more attention to the details of a race and not so much on the glamor and glitz the sport has become.  I hope all of you fathers out there enjoyed your special day as much as I did.