Nevada, Las Vegas - Sunday, November 2, 2014 - Hitching Post RV Park

Lazy day at home today.  We did get some laundry done and found places to put all of the goodies we brought home from the John Force/Castrol dinner.

Courtney Forces’s Traxxus car found a new home.

 

 

Here is where we spent most of the day – NASCAR on the TV and NHRA drag racing on the computer J.

Tomorrow we’ll be riding out to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area again.  The weather is supposed to be nice and the scenery out there is so beautiful.

Nevada, Las Vegas - Saturday, November 1, 2014 - Las Vegas Motor Speedway

We waited until mid-morning to leave for the drag races.  Had to wait for some rain and heavy winds to pass.  Since we didn’t get home until 11:30 last night and I was writing the blog after that, I didn’t mind sleeping in a bit this morning.  Looks like temperatures are going to be in the mid 60’s all day today.  Not bad for us, but for these desert dwellers it is darned cold J.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway is just 5 miles from where we are staying.

 

 

NASCAR also runs here.

 

 

Since our favorites are the Force drivers, we stopped in there first.

 

 

Courtney’s team is getting ready.

 

 

So is John’s.

 

 

We had to check out the Harley Davidson booth in Nitro Alley

 

 

Greg thought I should try out the competition Harley – nope, too many people standing around.

 

Love this 2015 CVO Screaming Eagle.  Price is just over $39,000 – didn’t love it that much.

See the piece that is inserted between the back and the seat?  We had a custom piece done to fit into the same spot on our 2010 bike when we bought it new.  In 2010 Harley decided to tilt the passenger seat back thinking it would be more comfortable, maybe so for long legged people, but short legged people like me then had to have the foot rests raised.  The slant on the seat also meant that your butt slid back in between the backrest and the seat at an uncomfortable angle.  Looks like Harley figured out the same fix we figured out in 2010.

 

 

Force’s booth in Nitro Alley.

 

 

Harley crew hard at work.

We had great seats thanks to Castrol.  They were about half way down the track so we could see the start and the finish.  We had plenty of room, everyone wasn’t packed in together.

Brittaney Force getting ready to run.

This is the view across the track where there is RV parking, at a pretty price.

 

Make a wish foundation brought things together today with the help of some NHRA teams to make a wish of being a drag racer come true for a 17 year old young man named Aaron.  There were two double seater race cars that came out to compete.  Aaron was in one car with a professional driver.  Two professional drivers were in the other car.  Aaron’s car came out the winner at 146 miles an hour.  He was awarded a trophy and the crowd stood up and cheered.  I think they really made Aaron’s wish come true.

Courtney Force getting ready to run.

John Force in his “American Made” color scheme getting ready to run.

As the sun started to set this evening there was beautiful color in the mountains across the way.

 

I really enjoy watching the cars in the evening because then you can see the flames shoot out when they go down the track.  Unfortunately, when I try to take a picture of that all I get is a blur because they are going so fast.

Great day at the track.  Tomorrow we’ll be hanging around here.  We’ll be leaving Monday morning headed for Mesa, AZ.  We’ll probably make one more overnight stop before we get there so we’ll pull into our winter home on Tuesday morning.

Nevada, Las Vegas - Friday, October 31, 2014 - Dinner with John Force and Castrol

Our intention was to call a cab to take us into the Monte Carlo hotel where dinner would be this evening.  Nevada is a state that requires you to wear a helmet and I kind of wanted to avoid “helmet head” since this was going to be a nice evening out.  We found out that Las Vegas considers Halloween an official holiday and cabs were only going to be working downtown, not out where we are.  Our other option was taking the bus – not going to happen, we’ve seen some of the people sitting at the bus stops.  So, we were back to having to take the bike.  I curled my hair on the hot rollers then pinned the resulting curls with bobby pins and covered the whole thing with a silk scarf under my helmet and brushed it out in the parking garage of the hotel, it actually didn’t look too bad.

We had some time to kill before dinner so we played penny slots and ended up $30 ahead for the time we played.  I do have to say that if you haven’t experienced Halloween in Las Vegas you really haven’t experienced Halloween.  There will be no pictures posted but everyone seemed to be having a really good time.

Those of you who know John Force know that he is in constant motion so getting pictures was a bit of a struggle.  I did catch a couple as he was signing cars for tonight’s giveaway.  Greg and his friend Pete from Castrol were helping set out the cars so they could be signed.  And, if it wasn't John moving it was Greg.

 

 

 

 Other Force drivers, Robert Hight and Courtney Force were also signing cars.

 

 

The dinner was sponsored by Castrol with about 60 invited guests.  John had a good time with the raffle.

 

 

All of the guests ended up with lots of goodies to bring home.  Now we just have to figure out where to put it.