On Father's Day weekend, Jessica and I decided to go watch the NASCAR race in Sonoma at the Infineon Raceway (Sears Point), since we live 3,000 miles away from our dads. I have never been to a race, but Jessica has a many under her belt. I didn't know what to expect. I knew I can't watch NASCAR on TV because watching people drive in an oval for three hours isn't my thing. The raceway in Sonoma is a road course (not an oval track), so I figured it was a good starting point. We left early Sunday morning hoping to beat the traffic, since the road we had to take was a single lane road. Unfortunately, we were about 20 minutes too late and it took us an extra 45 minutes to get to the raceway. When we finally parked and got to the track, it was about two hours before the race started. Jeff Gordon (Jessica's favorite driver) is originally from Vallejo (where Jessica works), so he was having a Q&A session. We didn't get to see it in person but we got to see it on the Jumbotron.
Our seats were in the ninth row up and we had a pretty good view of the track. Since it is a road course, there really aren't many seats that can see the whole track, but thanks to the Jumbtrons we could see the action that wasn't in our view.
View from our seatsAs we waited for the race to start we walked around to the different vendors and watched the aerial show. The jets were pretty cool. The stunts that pulled off were amazing and some of the flybys that they did were so close. The jets were honestly feet away from each other avoiding collisions by mere seconds. Jess and I were almost too anxious too watch.
More of the aerial show.When the race finally began Jessica was super excited. The cars were loud as they passed, but as Jessica explained it gets a lot louder in the heavily banked, oval tracks. The race went on and had a few cautions, mainly from spin outs. To be completely honest I had a good time. I didn't know what to expect going in, but the experience was great. There was always something to grab my attention and keep me interested. I was surprised.
One of the "parking lots"One very interesting tidbit that I think would only happen on a California race track... In order to go "green", instead of mowing the large infield areas and producing a lot of carbon emissions, the raceway raises its own sheep in order to 'cut' the grass. On our exit from the track we passed by them :) I doubt Daytona does that...

































































