I don't know what I expected when I planned a weekend in Bristol but whatever those expectations were, they were more than met and it's a weekend I would repeat 10 times. It was definitely different than my typical "get crazy" weekend in Charlotte but I loved every minute of it.
I've known Jenna for 8 months if you don't count the 7 years I "knew" her when we were at JMU. Since we reunited, I've been talking about going to Bristol to watch her race. For about 8 years she's been driving every make and model of race car in this grass roots (as her dad put it) racing league. A lot of her races are near her home but she's traveled all over the place to race. To top it off, she works for NASCAR, is completely submerged in the auto racing industry and is constantly pointing out my lack of knowledge of the culture.
So Megan and I finally committed and made plans to go to Bristol for the weekend. We got up early Saturday to make the 3-hour trip stopping every hour for the bathroom and being utterly floored by our first stop. The bathroom had a sign in it that said "Please don't flush paper down the toilet." (Just let that sink in for a minute). Then we're pretty sure the two guys at the counter stole the debit card they were using, and the guy at the coffee counter walked out on his cup of decaf when the attendant told him she didn't have any sugar packets. (Really!? Not sure if I'm more shocked that he needs sugar that much or that the store didn't have any in stock). Meanwhile, in the parking lot, a woman had driven her tractor to the station to get gas. Seeing as there wasn't a house within a mile of the gas station, we're pretty sure she was going to have to use all of the gas she'd just bought to get home.
About halfway through our trip, Jenna texts us to ask what our plans are. Uhm, call us crazy but weren't we going to see her? Shouldn't she have a plan for us? She was headed to the track already and gave us a list of restaurants to try in downtown Bristol and told us to kill some time. So we embarked on a self-guided tour of Bristol complete with antiquing and a trip to the giant sign. For those who don't know, Bristol is on the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. On one side of the street, you're in Bristol, Tennessee and on the other side, you're in Bristol, Virginia. We got a kick out of being in two places at once and joining in on the town joke that the sign says it's a good (not great) place to live.
Doing a little antiquing on the VA side!
A quick trip to Wal-Mart proved to be an adventure in itself. The shelves were lined with NASCAR gear and Duck Dynasty paraphernalia and we made out with some funky shirts and duct tape to make shirts for Jenna's race. We eventually made it to her house where we met up with her mom. At this point, we'd been in Bristol for 4 hours, toured downtown, gone to Wal-Mart, met her mom, saw her childhood bedroom and still hadn't actually seen Jenna. She called to check-in and make sure we got there okay and said she'd see us at the race.
We hopped in the car to make the hour-long trek to the race track. The way Jenna talks about her mom, I feel like I've known her forever. It turns out Jenna tells her mom and us all the same things so we were able to bond over those stories on the trip. As we drove through, her mom told us stories about how they used to live at the track and how one adventure to a drive-in took an unexpected turn. It was an easy conversation which helped considering there were only miles and miles of trees and mountains to look at (not complaining, it was gorgeous).
We made it to the track watched Jenna qualify and she came up to say hi (first Jenna sighting since we arrived). Much like minor league baseball, grass roots racing has a lot of bells and whistles that accompany the races: introductions, talking to the racers, and a few games to make it a little interesting. We watched a few of the other classes of race cars and Jenna completed her first race.
The track :)
As the sun started going down, things started getting interesting. I grew up close to the country so I'm not unfamiliar with country folk. Southwest Virginians, however, need their own introduction. Jenna has somewhat of a southern accent but I was more or less floored by some of the accents during the interviews they conducted. There were families and firends sitting in groups cheering for certain drivers and getting feisty during cautions and accidents. At one point, I thought there was going to be an all out family vs. family brawl after one driver spun out another. There was a mom cheering on her son so vigorously that she had to take puffs off of her inhaler in between laps just to keep it up and one driver had cut off his racing suit and his black and red heart boxers were showing out of the bottom. At the end of the night, we sliced up a watermelon right in the infield and had a little "treat" as they put it.
We headed back to the house where Jenna's mom laid out a full-blown spread of meats, cheeses, chicken salad, pasta salad and chips that would have been fit for any family BBQ. Jenna showed up about an hour later and we were able to hang out before we ALL passed out after the excitement from the day. They took us to lunch Sunday where I was blessed with soft pretzels and a beer cheese dip that is worth the trip back in itself.
I feel like you learn a lot about someone when you visit their hometown and while I knew a lot about Jenna going into it, nothing could have prepared me for the excitement at the track. The contrast between Jenna and her relaxed parents and the families coming out in broods of 10+ was startling. They take this racing very seriously and had there been no cars actually driving around the track, it would have been equally as entertaining. I'm sure they would come to my hometown and judge every thing about it so I don't feel the least bit guilty pointing this out. Different strokes for different folks and all.
I'm not a newcomer to auto racing having seen a ton of races in Richmond growing up but I recently rekindled my love for the sport when NASCAR was here in Charlotte a few weeks ago. I don't know where Saturday night short track racing has been all my life but it will definitely be a permanent fixture from here on out. I already made plans with my dad to go to Winston-Salem and he's taking me to Richmond on my next trip home.
The Bristol sign lit up at night :)
If nothing else, I had a relaxing, entertaining, and enlightening weekend. I got to hang out with some pretty awesome people and witness Jenna in her natural habitat. Should we make another trip to Bristol (and we will), I challenge it to be half as exciting as it was this time. Who knows, maybe I'll learn what it really means to be an "Appalachian American."
