North Carolina, Charlotte - Monday, June 10 2019 - Over the Wall Tour at Charlotte Motor Speedway

The Charlotte Motor Speedway is within walking distance from where we are staying in the campground.  Today we decided to drive over since rain was in the area and we are going out to Red Lobster after the tour to celebrate our 10^th wedding anniversary (a couple of days early).

We started out the tour in some really nice seats.  Our tour guide spent about 15 talking about the history of the track and what we were seeing from our seats.

There are some really great views here.

Tomorrow night they will have school bus races.  The busses are taken to local schools prior to the race and the students decorate them.  Tomorrow night the school principals will race them around the small quarter mile oval in front of us.

When you are watching the race from those great seats you have access to food and drink in this area.  I understand this is a popular area for wedding receptions.

We’ve walked the concession area before.  The last time we were here we had to shelter in place here when bad weather came through during a race we were attending.

We got to go into a couple of the corporate suites.

First was one of the Coco Cola suites.  They have another suite that accommodates 300.

Your view of the race would be great from here.

The companies can decorate their suites as they see fit.  The Bank of America suite looks more family friendly.

They have that same great view.

Lighting in the press box wasn’t great.

Performance Racing Network is where the radio coverage comes from.

Lots of buttons to push in here.

Next we headed out to a van to go on a tour of the outside facilities.

The ZMax Dragway where we were a couple of days ago for the Hot Rod Tour.

This is the drivers view down the four wide drag racing track as they get ready to come to the starting line.

The dirt track is where the World of Outlaws run.

Notice the bottom section of seats, they are all stained from dirt that flies up in the stands during the races.

There are 52 condominiums here, all are sold and 10 of them are occupied year round.

If you see strange things in the sky above the garage area, that is just the reflections on the window of the van.

This room is the media room where the drivers come for a pre-race meeting.  Driver interviews also happen in here.

Standing in the winner’s circle.

The view of the stands when you are in the winner’s circle.

The seats for observers in the winner’s circle don’t look too comfortable.  There is tape marking where the select few are supposed to sit.  We noted that one was marked “CIA”.  Someone asked, “really?”, answer was “yes”.

No more pictures at this point, we are out on the track and without the seat belt I would be on the floor, I see now why they have the drivers secured so well during the race.  This track has 24 degrees of bank in the corners. Oh my, that is steep!  I don’t know how they keep their cars up there.  We experienced decelerating to get down to pit lane speed.  However, we were only going about 80 mph – nothing like racing speed.  This was a really fun tour.

North Carolina, Charlotte - Saturday, June 8, 2019 - Hot Rod Power Tour

After we left Charleston, SC we spent five days in the parking lot at the Freightliner shop in Gaffney, SC.  That really isn’t as bad as it sounds.  They have electrical hook ups for 20 or so motor coaches as they wait for service.  We couldn’t get a designated appointment time for when we would be in the area (they book about a year ahead of time) so we went in as a “walk in” and had to wait for mechanics to get the appointments done before they could do our work.  It doesn’t help that we are so long that we take up two bays of the garage so we have to wait until there is room for us in addition to a mechanic being available.


The Freightliner facility is next door to a technical college campus which made for some nice walking, we managed to get in a couple of miles each day.


I love Gaffney’s water tower.  South Carolina actually leads Georgia in peach production.  Gaffney is the “capital” of peaches.  We did get some delicious peaches while we were there.  We were eating them fresh a couple of times a day and I had to do a little cooking frenzy when they all started getting too ripe all at once.  I fixed a couple of peach upside down cakes (one is in the freezer) and the rest went into peach sauce which is great on our morning cereal and yogurt.

When we left Charleston we ran into some stormy weather, really the first bad driving weather we have had since we left Arizona in mid-April.  On Friday we pulled into the campground at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.  This is a nice quiet reasonably priced place to stay, we’ve been here at least a couple of times before.

On Saturday I woke up to what sounded like a train coming through the campground.  When I got into the living room Greg was watching what looked like miles of hot rods coming right by the campground into the parking lot outside of the John Force grandstands he said, “Something is happening”.  Yes it was, we just didn’t know what.

A little internet search revealed that Saturday was the kickoff day for the 2019 Hot Rod Power Tour.  This is the 25^th year for the seven day, seven city journey for the world’s largest traveling car show.  This year they expect to bring together 6,000 vehicles and over 100,000 spectators.  In seven days they cover over 1300 miles.  The vehicles that make the entire trip are part of the “Long Haul Gang”.  Last year 4,000 vehicles made it.  Considering the age and condition of some of the vehicles that is pretty amazing.  At each stop they will have locals that will bring in their vehicles just for the day.  This year the kick off was here in Charlotte, NC where they ended up last year.  They will finish this year at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH where they finished 25 years ago on the inaugural tour.  The really good thing was that admission was free, at least here!

You could find all kinds of cars from classic to the one you would drive to work every day.

Imagine the attention I could get driving this around the campground.  David Snider, check out those pipes!

Since we drive a Jeep this display was of interest.  I’m not sure we need that.

This was my favorite!

This is what is pulling it.

Cars were parked for as far as you could see.

This one was from Indiana – I think maybe a Purdue fan.  No one was around so we didn’t find out any more about it.

North Carolina, Franklin - Saturday, October 8, 2016 - Franklin RV Park

This is where we will be, site 28, for the next couple of days.  The sun was starting to set by the time I got out to take pictures so they look a little dark.

Our original plan after leaving Gaffney, SC was to head west to Mesa, AZ.  Since we got done quicker than we thought at Gaffney we decided to attend a Freightliner Owner’s Rally in Dillard, GA starting Monday, October 10.  After our stop in Stone Mountain we backtracked a bit into the Smokey Mountains of northern Georgia and southern North Carolina.  The leaves are starting to change.  As we drove today we could feel some of the effects of Hurricane Matthew even this far inland.  The winds were pretty bad in some areas, I was glad we were traveling in a motor coach instead of pulling a fifth wheel.

We can’t get into the campground where the rally is being held until Monday so we came a little further north just across the North Carolina line to stay a couple of days at Franklin RV Park – what a gem we stumbled across.  I think this is the nicest little country campground we have stayed in.  A word to the wise if you come in in a big rig, turn to the right when you see the “enter” sign.  If you go straight it takes a bit of maneuvering to get going the right way to get into your spot.

The park is very well maintained and lots of seasonal decorations are up.

This meeting lodge is right next to us. I was going to clean on Sunday but now I think I might just grab a cup of hot tea and enjoy a rocking chair.

Our view out the front window is this pasture which is kept well mowed.  As we walked around last night we heard a cow moo from somewhere close.  We had to laugh because a review of another campground we read a couple of years ago said that the reviewer was disturbed by the noise the cows in the pasture made.  If that is the only disturbance I hear, I’m good.  This is definitely a place I would like to come back to.