Birthday Fun

In celebration of Jamie's birthday yesterday, we got a babysitter!! We began the evening by going to dinner at Buca di Beppo, which is a family-style italian restaurant. We stuffed ourselves with a variety of stuffed pasta, giant 1/2 lb meatballs, and an extremely yummy pasta with vegetables. Afterwards, it was on to the indoor go-cart racetrack. Honestly, though, this is no ordinary go-cart experience. There were 8 of us, so we were allowed to sign up for the mini grand-prix, which consisted of 3 warm-up laps, 2 heat races of 20 laps each, and one final race of 15 laps. After we signed a waiver saying that we wouldn't sue them if we got hurt, they gave us our flame-retardant racing suits, helmets, and neck braces. We had to watch an informational training video before we were allowed on the track. The video basically explained to us what the flags meant and warned us that if we deliberately ran into each other or the wall, we would be black flagged and kicked off the track with no refund.

Honestly, I thought I was going to kick ass. Looking back to the way I used to drive real cars, I figured that I had no choice but to be fast. What I didn't realize was that Jamie invited his competitive friends to join us...I never had a chance! Out of the 8 of us, I finished 5th in the first heat, 6th in the second, and 5th in the final. I would've finished better in the second heat, but I was the only one of us that caused a full-track caution by my spinout on the U-turn (turn 5, maybe?). Jamie fared much better. He finished 4th, 2nd, and 3rd. Of course, our friend Phillip won all three races, and his times placed him as the 7th fastest among all racers that came to the track during the entire week! Needless to say, it was a really fun time, and I highly recommend coming out to visit solely to race! Ok. Well, maybe you can visit us, too!

If you're interested, check it out at www.raceplacemotorsports.com . You should be able to find Jamie's and my names under the top 100 for the Unbound Energy Track.