I’ve been going to TMS since the first summer race. I would have gone to the inaugural race, but that is another story. It started out just my brother and me with season tickets bought from some guy in Pennsylvania (who backed out of flying down for every race after he saw the tab for the first one). We spent the night at Little Bro’s fiancée’s home near White Rock Lake and drove back and forth. We started borrowing Dad’s camper for the fall race that year. The folks who sit behind us live in Saginaw. They offered to stake out enough camper spaces for us and the couple sitting next to us (Okies) the second year. When reserved camp sites came along, they picked the 3 sites we have now. We have all become great friends. We see each other at the races and stay in touch all year. When the Saginaw couple’s new grandbaby was in hospital 5 of his first 6 weeks, I went by to see them.

This weekend, there were 13 of us in the stands, and 9 in the 4 campers. Little Bro’s bride has become a race fan and they got a motor home last fall, the other 2 original couples have upgraded a total of 5 times, and I’m still in the 79 Winnebago! (Team CB should be paying me royalties!)

This is all great fun – if you don’t get bogged down in the details. Non-campers showed up late every time, scanner rental receipts were misplaced, rented scanners died, not everyone wanted to do the same thing at the same time, and it was Africa hot during the day and monsoon wet at night. I didn’t get there until Thursday (plans for a Wednesday arrival were full of air like the brake lines on the Winne), but Dad and I had a good time bleeding them.

The truck race was a little boring. Not much passing, and my guy, David Starr, was taken out on lap 22 after qualifying in the top 10 and holding his own to that point. To Starr’s credit, the team worked for over a 100 laps, got him back on the track near the end and gained one place in the final standings! That is what it takes to win a championship.

IRL is awesome. Three wide in the turns and four wide under the flag stand at 200+ mph is cool, but what blew my mind was the number of times I saw left wheels in the grass at the first dog leg – and nobody ever lifts! The end was close, and there were some pretty exciting passes, but not like I’ve seen before. I guess once you see three wide at the checkers, a normal finish isn’t the same.

If you’ve never been to an event at TMS, you are missing a great time. Go with some friends, but don’t get bogged down in the details. That’s what I like about this MME group; we stay loose, and that’s why I passed out every dfwmiata.com card I had . . .