July 14, 2009

Everyone met at Loveless Cafe for breakfast. This was also going to be our starting point for the rally. Enjoyed the family style breakfast of eggs, bisquits & gravy, fruit, bacon, sausage -- it all tasted homemade and soooo good! Todays first checkpoint was Talladega Superspeedway!! We were so excited and hoped they would let us out on the track. Very few people get to drive this track. We arrived in apprx 7th place and lined up to enter the track. They were letting 4 or 5 out at a time. We were very low on gas but heard it was only 3 laps - 2 at speeds of 100-110 and the last one was "balls out". We were led out to the track by the pace car (which you can't pass) and took off. We were probably 5 ft from his bumper the entire time. This track has banked turns that are 33%. I could look out the drivers window and only see concrete. It was such a rush. The final lap we were doing 150mph and at the last turn we heard and smelled something funny. As we exited to the pit the car was just bogging out and smoking like a pig from the tailpipes. We pulled over and popped the hood. Tony saw oil on the top of the engine and said "that is real real bad". He checked the oil for any water contamination and none was found. He then disconnected the turbo to see if we just lost a seal. If that was the case we could just drive without the turbo the rest of the way. That wasn't the case either. The track tow truck had to come get us because the car had hardly any power and was still smoking. They were kind enough to tow us to the Pontiac Dealership in Anniston, AL for a diagnosis. The service dept said it would be a while but we already had a plan set up. Dave from DDMworks offered to pick up the car and bring it to South Carolina to be fixed up at a later date. So Team Grand National, who also had car problems the day before, came and picked us up in their brand new 2010 Camaro. We were now heading to Atlanta to catch up to the other teams and party. By now everyone on the rally had heard what happened and it was all over the internet. Several teams offered to let us ride with them all the way to Austin. So we knew we could still have a good time. We arrived at the W hotel and got ready for dinner at Maggianos - yum yum yum. One of my favorite Italian restaurants. The party after dinner was on the rooftop of the W hotel. Tony wasn't in that great of a mood and he was hoping to rent a car for the rest of the trip. The cost was going to be 1200-1500 so we decided just to ride with Team Subi. I went up to the party with everyone else while Tony was on the computer and helping Team Camaro put on new decals. Mike, from Team Subi, and the Lexus girls kept me company for a while and we drank the entire bottle of Grey Goose!! We headed to our rooms around 2am to get a few hours of sleep before wheels up time, which was 9:30!!