Weekend #2 Recap

The nice weather from last week certainly didn't stick around long enough! Cold and rain greeted us at Knoxville Raceway, as preparations were being made to open its 49th year of racing. Instead of watching a great program of sprint cars, I made the three hour drive back to Lincoln. It's not the first time I've gone to Iowa, only to be turned away by the weather, and I doubt it'll be the last.

The upside is we've got some cool things going on this year with NOS Energy Drink, so I'm definitely excited to be a part of that again in 2009.

NOS Energy Drink will continue their involvement with Brian Brown this year, so it'll be fun to watch him battle it out for the 410 points championship.

The weekend wasn't a total rain out however. On Sunday I went with my parents and Erin down to Kansas City for the IndyCar Series race at the Kansas Speedway. I really didn't think we'd get to see any racing because of all the surrounding rain, but the weather stayed away long enough for the entire 300 miles to be run.

Scott Dixon won the battle off pit road on the final set of pit-stops and went on to win the race. It was a nice rebound from the two DNFs he suffered during the Series' two opening street course races. Dixon is going to be tough to beat heading into May again this year.

Helio Castroneves has wasted little time getting back into the swing of things. Twice Castroneves had to start from the back, and twice he machined his way through the field, finally finishing second. Castroneves looks like he's really enjoying himself and should give Dixon some stiff competition at the Brickyard.

The real drama of the day came after our dinner stop in St. Joseph, Missouri. While we were fueling up, the sirens started up and we suddenly found ourselves in an unfamiliar setting with some bad weather on the way. We finally stopped off at a nearby Target and waited out the storm near the changing rooms in the back of the store.

Luckily the thunderstorm passed with no tornadoes or serious damage. It was a long drive home, but we made it back with another weather story to tell.

I didn't get to see as many green flag laps as I had hoped for this weekend, but I was very lucky to have seen any laps run at all.

April is almost over and hopefully May will treat us a little better.

Next Up...
5/2 - World of Outlaws, Knoxville Raceway