Every weekday starting at 5:45am, a series of alarms set off and challenge my dreams to a gauntlet of consciousness. Nearly all of these battles end with the army of alarms prevailing and me begrudgingly rolling out of bed. Some hygiene maintenance and feet shuffling later I sleepily set off to go to work at my job that is literally down the street from me. And oddly enough, this is how fired up I am in the morning for a career I actually like.
Last weekend however, I sprung out from my nest of pillows at 4am just to get my gear together for a 2 hour trip to go watch race cars all day. There’s something about track day.
My car’s currently in the shop after having too close of an encounter with a Honda Accord, so I had to sit this one out, but my friends wanted to make a play day out of it, so I tagged along.
The morning was cold and a bit damp, but we were lucky enough to be gifted with what would be a sunny race day at the track.
On the way there, however, exceptions existed in the form of iced bridges that managed to claim at least 3 cars going our way. Our travel buddy, Will, spun on the highway at over 70mph when we crossed one such bridge. But other than having to clean mud out of the wheel wells and wipe grass off the carbon fiber, he came away unscathed.
We arrived at Texas World Speedway a little after sunrise.
All the garages were packed with people doing their last minute wrenching so they wouldn’t miss a second of their respective run groups.
I toured the grounds looking at everybody’s toys and fell in love with this Porsche. This is the most endearing road turn race car I’ve ever laid my eyes on. It feels special while at the same time a little humble. I wish I could wax poetic about this car, but I’m just drawn to describe it solely as… charming.
As I was being nosey in other people’s garages, my friends had been attending the driver’s meeting. More than just an area to screw around in, DriversEdge provides instruction and guidance to raise little hoonies into big hoonies.
I don’t think it could have been anymore beautiful of a day for racing unless there were rainbows in the sky, but the Miata quotient was already near capacity.(Ayoooo! I’ll be here all night, folks.)
Everyone was on the track ripping it up and it didn’t take long before I got a little really jealous of all the fun I was missing out on.
Eventually the cars came in to pit and I was able to catch a ride along for some parade laps though.
Seeing the track at level was a different experience entirely. It’s safe to assume that my envy for the day was peaking, but I was also a little bummed for a slightly different reason. 2015 is supposedly also the final year for Texas World Speedway, and I may not ever get the chance to drive the track myself before it goes. Though it’s been here since 1969, it’s projected to be torn down for housing development after this summer.
I was speaking to this guy and he told me that he had been coming to the track since he was 11 years old, so I can only imagine how it must feel for the racers who’ve been coming here from its inception.
If you ever get the chance to go out to the track, even if just to watch, I strongly urge you to!
You can check here for information on the Drivers Edge program as well as upcoming events if any may be applicable to you.
