May 8th, 2021 – Sacramento Raceway Park
As we are homeschooling on the road part of the kids assignments is helping me write about our Journey. Noah has been proof reading all my post and making sure I have complete sentences. The truth is homeschool has been learning for all of us up to this point. I’m relearning math I did as a teenager, learning and engaging in history I am also bettering my writing skills. I know I’m not perfect or the best writer but, through this journey Noah, Malachi and I will all get better. I’m super excited to announce this blog today is written by Noah. Enjoy!
On Saturday, May 8, we went to the Sacramento Raceway Park. We went to the Main Event, which had many different indexes of racing. There was the 10.60 index, which means that you cannot go faster than 10.60 seconds in a ¼ mile. There also was the 9.60, 8,60, and 7.60 index, which means the same thing as the 10.60 index, but with different times. The Lily Dog and Big Dog index was when you had to go just slower than 4.60 seconds, without going faster. The only difference was that the Lily Dog means you can use a pro mod, and the Big Dog is for street cars.
We arrived at the Dragstrip at around 11:00, but the races started at 11:45, so we had some time to walk around the pits where all the cars were parked. We walked and we saw many cool cars, including Camaros, Novas, and Bel Airs. But one thing stuck out. We saw a trailer with a big red tent outside of it reading, “Team Boddie”. Now, if you have ever seen the show “Street Outlaws” on Discovery Channel, you would know that he is a big deal.
After our waltz through the pits, we realized that we would need ear plugs or we would end up blowing out our eardrums, and of course we left those at home. So Malachi, Lita, and Mom went in the truck on their journey to get ear plugs while Dad, John and I stayed back and watched some racing. The racing started at 11:45 just like the schedule said, and it started off with the 7.60 index and worked its way up to the 10.60 index (7.60, 8.60, 9.60, 10.60). And then we heard, “Boddie Jr. in his ‘69 Camaro”, and up rolled Boddie’s son, in his white 1969 Camaro. He did his burnouts, and then got lined up to the drag tree, and then ran just a teensy bit too fast, and struck out, meaning he was disqualified.
Right after that race, Malachi, Mom, and Lita came back with some earplugs and headphones for the little kids. We slapped those on and watched some racing without having to plug our ears. After a while, everyone was starting to get hungry, so we walked down to the food area and there were about 5 food trucks with some amazing smells wafting around the air. Lita and I decided to get a giant corn dog, Malachi got a salad, and my parents got a burger with fries to share with some tacos as well. And we all munched on our food as we watched the rocket speed cars go down the quarter mile long dragstrip.
After we finished our food, Dad, Lita and I decided to go walk around the pits one more time to see if we could see Boddie. We got to his area, and we didn’t see him at all, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an area that said “Giuseppe Gentile”. He is also a racer off of the tv show “Street Outlaws”, so we walked over there and we saw his black, fox body Mustang. I took a picture with the car and we headed back to the stands to watch more races. At around 2:30, we saw Boddie come up with his other 1969 Camaro and he lined up for the race.
He pulled up and got ready, and left. He started losing the race, so he started putting more gas down, and hit the wall, hit it again, and then rolled the car. As we watched everyone rush down the end of the track to help him out, we sat there, amazed at what we just saw. This was the first ever crash that I have ever seen where the driver crashed. We then had to wait 30-45 minutes for them to clean the track off and get it prepped for more races.
It was now around 5:00 and I was starting to get hungry again because all I had was a corndog. So I went down and bought a burger, and came back up. We watched races till 8:00 and it was all over. We left, and started our trek home after our long day of racing. Nobody else had supper yet, so we went through a Mexican drive through and everyone ate, other than me. After a 45 minute drive home, we got back to the camper and everyone went to bed. I laid my head on the pillow and feel asleep almost instantly after I hit the pillow.
