The Face 48

I went to my first NASCAR race over the weekend. It was AWESOME. It was definitely fan-overload and I was more excited than Justin Bieber fangirls when he swishes his hair. There were vendor trailers (Jimmie Johnson's and Danica Patrick's were right next to each other, which was so super cool), people everywhere sporting their favorite driver's merchandise, and the actual race was fantastic.

Being at my first race, of course I had to stop at JJ's and Danica's trailers to buy stuff. I got t-shirts, a JJ travel mug, and stickers with their numbers for my car. (I call them Sophie's new tattoos.)

After I changed into my new shirt to join the sea of 48 supporters, I got Jimmie's numbers painted on my face. If I'm only going to one race a year, I may as well go all out.

The race itself was thrilling. We were only five rows from the track and right near the start/finish line, so we were practically front and center.

This was when JJ was in the lead.



It was extremely loud and I probably would have killed my ears if I didn't have ear plugs. There were a couple of wrecks, but they happened just around the corner where we couldn't see. (The track is too big to see the whole thing from where we were.) JJ led a few laps, and had an unmatched machine the whole race. He would have won if he had better pit stops and just a few more laps to catch the leader. And if he didn't smack the wall on one of the last few laps. (Sad face.)

Here's what our view was like: 

We watched this for about four hours. Contrary to what many people think, I wasn't bored at all. Watching Jimmie pass people left and right, and rooting for him when he was leading was so much fun. The sun was pretty hot though, and I definitely got a little burnt.

I noticed the redness once I got back to the hotel and took a shower. I had to scrub off all of the dirt, sunscreen, face paint, and bits of rubber from the track. What I found out next is the icing of the fan dedication cake.

I scrubbed all of the paint off of my cheek, which wasn't easy, and noticed in the mirror that I had a backwards tan. Not only did I have raccoon eyes like last year, I had a pale 48 from where the paint was. My whole face got sun except the skin under the paint.

So today I'm rocking the face 48 like a champ. True fan dedication means getting an accidental tan of your driver's numbers.

Go Jimmie!