Road America 2017

Okay guys, seriously debating whether I’ll be able to get through writing this blog without crying.

Not even kidding.

I’m kinda a crier and I loved Road America so much and I’m writing this as we are driving home so the emotions are running high people!

So if you haven’t gathered by now, this blog is going to be about how great of a weekend it was at Road America this past weekend.

If you weren’t there to bask in all of its wonderful glory I am truly sorry, because you sure did miss out.

This year was my second year at Road America for the Kohler Grand Prix and I enjoyed it just as much, if not more than last year.

This year I decided to take the super chill approach and pretty much just observe everything that was going on around me.

I only went up to drivers I hadn’t meet before and would just constantly be walking thought the paddock seeing what everyone was up to.

Over the weekend I saw every driver except for Charlie Kimball.

And to be fair, I only was Tony Kannan from his pit box.

But besides those two I was able to see everyone else at least once over the weekend if not multiple times.

But to give you a better idea of my road America experience I’m going to give you a day-by-day low down.

Lets get to it.

DAY 1: TESTING THURSDAY

Thursday was a very chill day.

Everyone was slowly arriving at the track.

We walked through the paddock a couple of times and spotted a few drivers such as Hinch, Josef Newgarden, and Takuma Sato.

I will never call myself a Takuma Sato fan, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet the 2017 Indy 500 winner, okay?

Also, LOOK AT HOW TINY SATO IS.

Like what even.

That evening we went on an evening stroll though the paddock, it was pretty cool to see it all empty; just waiting for the chaos that would ensue over the next few days.

FRIDAY: FAST FRIDAY

Friday marked the first day that the IndyCar’s would actually hit the track.

We watched the first practice from out campsite and turn one.

We were in awe watching the cars go from 185 in the strait to 85 through the turn.

Like what even.

After practice one we walked through the paddock, seeing what was going on after practice, seeing the drivers and teams mill around.

Eventually we made our way down the hill to the Chevy tent, stopping along the way to watch the pro Mazda race from different vantage points.

At the Chevy tent we found out that the Team Penske drivers would be making an appearance soon so we stayed.

But, my goodness was that Q&A session hilarious! Those guys have a great chemistry!

And oh man, Helio at one point was making us all die laughing.

It was too much!

Later we were back at our campsite to watch practice two, where it was truly a Penske party with my man JNew finishing P1.

I watched the end of that practice from the exit of pit lane to watch them speed down the strait crazy fast.

Then we walked up and down pit lane to watch pit stop practice.

It was really cool actually.

Not that I wasn’t expecting it to be, but watching up close like that. Awesome.

Then we continued to walk through the paddock, just taking it all in.

We got to see lots of those beautiful cars that I love sitting around everywhere.

When we got to the end of the paddock by the Ganassi trailers, I said to my mom “The only drivers I really haven’t seen at all this weekend are Scott Dixon and Tony Kannan and they are the two drives I would really like to meet. I guess if I really want to met them then I might have to actually stalk them.”

Not even a minute later as we rounded the corner, I was Scott Dixon coming around the fence exiting pit lane.

“ITS SCOTT DIXON!” I exclaimed as I ran over to where he was and was able to get a picture with him.

So freaking cool.

The guy is an IndyCar legend; I’ve had a poster of him on my wall since I was nine years old.

You could say I was pretty happy after that.

Friday night I sent a tweet to Norman Pagenaud, the dog of Simon Pagenaud, 2017 IndyCar series champion, with a picture of the fat head I made of Norman and saying that we had some treats for him.

By some weird twist of fate, they responded and said they wanted to stop by.

We were all freaking out at our campsite.

SATURDAY: QUALIYFING AND ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

Saturday started out like any other day at Road America, I went and took a morning stroll through the paddock and ended up spotting Robin Miller.

If you recall, I froze during my opportunity to meet Robin at Indy, but I didn’t mess it up this time.

As soon as he came tow here I could reach him I approached him and told him I was a fan and that I loved his writing and asked him if we could take a picture.

He thanked me and agreed and said that we should move over into the sun so that you could see my face.

To say I was thrilled to have meet Robin Miller, my sports writer inspiration would be an understatement.

We watched practice three from our campsite again and it was looking to be a Penske party again and then something happened to Newgarden in turn 14 and he went though the gravel.

He had great speed all weekend so it made me nervous the entire practice waiting and wondering if they would get the car back out and still have speed.

Towards the end of practice I went and watched by the exit of pit lane again as I watched Josef finally go out and start turning lap, but they were slow.

As he went out on one last lap I thought okay, all he has to do is go fast enough to end P4, bumping out Dixon making it Penske 1-4.

I knew he could do it.

And then he passed timing and scoring and he did it.

It was then that I walked up and down pit lane a couple of times seeing all of the drivers get out of their cars and chat with their crews.

Walking back I got stuck waiting at the intersection where people and cars were coming in and out of pit lane.

As I was standing there I ended up standing right next to a line of Indy lights drivers waiting in line for the port-a-potty.

Then I saw Mario Andretti almost get into a scooter accident.

Spencer Pigot came out and walked right past me, so close that I could have reached out and hugged him if I wanted to and then RHR came out on his scooter and I made room for him smiling at him and giving him a head nod.

Slowly I made my way back to our campsite to prepare for the arrival of Norman.

And guess what?

He actually came!

Simon’s girlfriend Haley came over with Norman, Simon’s assistant, and an IndyCar photographer.

He wanted noting to do with the dog treat, but thoroughly enjoyed one of my cookies in the shape of Will Power’s car.

We were on Simon’s instagram story, the picture and video was posted on both his intagram and twitter and an article about it appeared in the IndyStar and USA Today.

My cookie is making it big!

We were all giddy after the event and couldn’t believe how cool it was that it actually happened.

We had no idea what was yet to come of our day.

Shortly after Norman’s visit it was time for qualifying so we headed down to turn 5 to watch.

I would say it was a pretty good qualifying show.

I was excited to see Spencer Pigot show some speed, but he just narrowly missed the top 6.

Maybe this is a sign of what is to come from him in the rest of the season.

But to say the least, I was pretty happy with a Penske shut down.

After qualifying we walked though the paddock a few times.

We saw Robin Miller and Marshall Pruett doing their qualifying recap video for Racer.com, which was pretty cool.

Then we stumbled upon Rick Mears for about the hundredth time that weekend, but he was signing autographs so I decided to take the opportunity to get my picture with the 4 time Indy 500 winner.

And, we were matching. Too cool!

The rest of the evening was spent just hanging out at our campsite.

Then all of the sudden Will Power and his wife Liz appeared at our site.

Yeah, you read that right.

Actual real life, IndyCar series champion and legendary driver Will Power came to our campsite and hung out with us for like half an hour.

We were all giddy as we engaged in casual conversation with him.

He thought out Will Power Power Bar was cool.

He thought that we had a cool spot to watch the race.

We talked about how fast they come though that corner.

We talked about tires.

He noticed that we were clearly Team Penske fans and Chevy people.

We told him that Norman had been by earlier and ate a cookie of his car and he said that of course he did because Pagenaud always has to try and beat Will.

We talked about his name being Will Power, we asked what his parents were thinking and they said that they call him William so its not really a thing and then I told him about how Ellie and I have watch the Indy 500 pre race broadcast bit where he goes “awe come on, still going at it with the will power jokes” about a million times and quote it all the time and he laughed and said he remembered them having him do that.

He even said that if he won the race he would stop his car in turn one, jump out, jump over the fence, and come and do shots with us.

He even looked around to survey the area so he could remember where we were.

We were all rooting for him to win then.

And before he left he took a picture at the bar with his fat head and it was hilarious.

And then everyone insisted that I take a picture with him as well since it was mostly all my doing.

And then he left and we were all left in complete and under shock of what in the world had just happened.

Also, while Will was over, the campsite contest judges happened to stop by at the same time.

What are the odds?

To say they were impressed would be an understatement.

What. A. Day.

SUNDAY: RACE DAY

I was up and outside with my coffee in hand in my team Penske mug two minutes before the 8 AM final warm up started.

Is there a better way to start the moring?

After the practice session I went back into our camper to start getting ready for the day.

About 10 minutes later as I was doing my makeup I could hear people outside talking: it was a camera crew, here to do a story on our awesome campsite.

So I ventured outside and Scott, Tracy, and I awkwardly were videoed resulting in a hilarious, yet cool video that you can find on the Road America Facebook page.

Then as I tried to go inside and finally actually put some clothes on and put a bra on (yeah, I didn’t have a bra on this entire time so I had to keep my jacket zipped up looking like a black blob) the camp hosts showed up to tell us we won the most awesome campsite competition.

We were all super exited.

So I went back outside, still braless and we accepted our trophy, our tickets for next year, and our Kohler battery thing and were photographed.

And when we thought we were done the Kohler photographer stopped by and there was more pictures taken.

And then finally everyone left and I was finally able to put a bra on.

After breakfast we went and walked though the paddock once again.

We stopped in a few shops as well and ran into Michael Andretti’s wife and their twins.

In the paddock Ed Carpenter practically brushed arms with Jaden and he didn’t even notice.

About an hour before the green flag I returned to do one final walk thought the paddock before the race.

All of the cars were lined up waiting to go on pit lane and then I watched them wheel them out.

Eventually I found myself in front of the team Penske tents and was able to wish Josef Newgarden good luck as he made his way to the grid.

Then we stood at the fence by where Josef’s car was lined up on the grid.

Will power came by on his scooter and he gave us a head nod.

We watched as Josef arrived at his car and then suited up, got strapped in, and then they all rolled of the grid.

We then quickly made our way to turn one where we watched the first few laps of the race.

The race went by fairly quickly.

There was lots of good racing out there.

I cheered when Josef took the lead of course.

When the caution came out with 10 laps to go I started getting nervous.

Could Josef catch Dixon?

He had more push to pass left.

It was possible.

I was so nervous the entire rest of the race, but sadly, Josef wasn’t able to catch Dixon.

It was still a great race though.

I can’t not be happy for Dixon.

I decided to go and watch the celebration at victory lane because why not?

It was actually pretty cool.

I got to see them swap hats 50 million times, the confetti cannons went of with personalized IndyCar confetti, and they sprayed each other with champagne.