a day at the races

Late last week Rick's work held a raffle. They brought an actual Honda racecar into their lobby and raffled off a prize package that included a ride in the Honda racecar around the Long Beach Grand Prix track.

This past Saturday.

We had to be there at 8:30am. Yikes!

While that made it super early that our family had to leave our house in order to make it all the way across town and find parking and get to the paddock area, this was so exciting for Rick and there was no way we were going to miss seeing this as a family.

With his special backstage pass, we went into the restricted area and found the Honda racing team RV. He filled out paperwork (signed his life away), got assigned a suit and fireproof shoes and then we waited for his race time to arrive.

I LOVE that everyone's eyes are closed (mine included!)...it was bright!

When it came time to race, we walked towards the end of the paddock area to head towards the racetrack, but were stopped by security who said, "Sorry, only racers past this point, no family or friends." We were extremely disappointed that we wouldn't get to see Rick do anything more than walk around in a cool outfit, but we understood there are safety rules to follow, and waved goodbye to him as he walked away. 

Not 5 seconds later, an older lady who was also working security at that entrance came over and said, "You can't miss watching your daddy race that awesome car, follow me" and she took us out right to the racetrack with all of the press photographers and followed it up with, "Now hold onto their hands, do not let go, and keep them right by your side. Oh, and get lots of pictures." 

We couldn't believe how lucky we were to get to see this only 10 feet away:

And the funny part was, after all that prepping and waiting and instruction etc., he was back in less than a minute. Geesh. 180 miles per hour is FAST. 

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon eating cotton candy, sitting in the grandstands and enjoying the day together as a family. We left pretty early (4 year olds don't always last long, especially when it's cold and windy) but we were so tired we didn't mind too much.