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Photo Gallery | Parker's Points: Behind the scenes with Danica, the Avetts, and Champagne!

Parker's Points: Behind the scenes with Danica, the Avetts, and Champagne!
Submitted by David Whisenant
Thursday, May 31st, 2012, 1:06pm
Travis Pastrana is one of the most recognized action sports stars in the world, thanks to X Games fame, but he took his lumps over the past seven days at CMS. It started on Wednesday when he brought his Dodge Dart rally car to the parking lot at zMAX Dragway to give media rides. While he gave members of the media a ride they won’t soon forget, he also managed to run into a chain link fence twice in the exact same spot. The second time he uprooted four fence posts. Pastrana was a good sport about it though and even offered to pay for it. His week didn’t get much better as he spun in Nationwide qualifying for the HISTORY 300 then spun three times in the race. He did manage to win his heat race in Saturday evening’s Global Rallycross event, but was wrecked out of the feature. Afterwards, a dejected Pastrana said this was the worst on-track day of his racing career.
After 53 years of racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway, we can still find new ways to excite the fans. The Global Rallycross Championship Series came to CMS for the kickoff of their 2012 season. Finland’s Marcus Gronholm held off teammate and defending series champ, Tanner Foust to win Saturday’s feature. The 600-horsepower, all-wheel drive, two-door production cars put on quite a show for the fans on the custom-made .77-mile frontstretch course that included multiple water hazards and a ramp-to-ramp jump.
Former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition cover girl and Charlotte native Brooklyn Decker served as Honorary Race Director for the Coca-Cola 600 to promote her new movie Battleship. Danica Patrick took time out of her busy schedule on Sunday for a media opportunity with Decker and gave her a quick tutorial about stock car racing. There is no truth to the rumor that Decker got her shoes from David Whisenant’s closet.
Scott and Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers took in their first NASCAR race on Sunday as guests of the speedway and were introduced at the driver’s meeting, given a behind-the-scenes tour of the garage and watched the start of the race from the brand new pit road suites. Bobby Labonte’s son Tyler is a big fan of the Concord’s most famous musicians and invited them over for a tour of the team’s transporter. Having spent some time with them this weekend, I can honestly say I’ve never met a more grounded and humble pair of musicians. They’re real people; they’re good people, and they have a very bright future ahead of them. …and they were blown away by their first NASCAR experience.
A long-standing tradition at Charlotte Motor Speedway is The Champagne Toast in The Speedway Club at the conclusion of the evening after the Coca-Cola 600. This photo took place somewhere around 12:30 a.m. as hundreds of Speedway Club members gathered to watch CMS President and General Manager Marcus Smith give the newly crowned 600 champion a ring from Diamond’s Direct, a Citizen’s watch and a custom-made sport coat from William Wilson Clothing. Kahne’s name was then engraved on the perpetual Bruton Smith Trophy and the crowd on hand toasted the three-time Coca-Cola 600 winner.
The last thing I did before heading home at 3 a.m. on Monday morning was drive out to pit road to take one last photo of the speedway’s quiet frontstretch. The same piece of real estate that within the previous 12 hours hosted a fabulous prerace show with a 21-gun (Howitzer’s to be exact) salute, the unfurling of the largest American flag in the world, a prerace concert from Darius Rucker and a record-breaking pace for the Coca-Cola 600. I’m fortunate to do what I do for a living and would like to thank all of the fans for coming out over the past two weeks to take in an event at CMS. I hope you left with some memories that will last a lifetime.

CONCORD - Here it is, the highly anticipated Charlotte Motor Speedway version of Parker's Points!  Today CMS Communications Director and former South Rowan Raider Football Flash Adrian Parker gives us a rare behind the scenes look at the madness and mayhem that was Race Week at CMS.  Enjoy!

DW:  Charlotte Motor Speedway was the place this week!  Kasey Kahne showing his old form rocketed to the front and claimed victory in the Coca Cola 600 winning racing's longest race in the shortest amount of time.  Was Kahne a surprise?  And just how hot is Hendrick Motorsports right now? 

Was Kasey Kahne a surprise winner Sunday? No. Despite his struggles early in the year with Hendrick Motorsports, Kahne has always been fast at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In fact, he’s racked up more Cup victories at CMS than any other track on the circuit—five total when you include his 2008 Sprint All-Star Race victory.

Sunday was Kahne’s third career victory in the Coca-Cola 600, tying him with six other drivers for second-place in the all-time 600 win list. He now trails only NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Darrell Waltrip, who scored five victories in NASCAR’s longest event.

How hot is Hendrick Motorsports? Apparently they got mad after you kept asking when win No. 200 was going to come. They got so mad, in fact, that they’ve reeled off three straight wins, two with Jimmie Johnson, including the Sprint All-Star Race, then Kahne’s Coca-Cola 600 triumph. That stable has a ton of talent, top to bottom, and it’s quite possible they could keep rolling at Dover considering Johnson’s history at the Monster Mile.

DW:  Give us a little insider talk here.  From your point of view, how did everything go over the weekend?  It has to be a big job to put on the events and manage the logistics for more than 200,000 fans over a couple of days.

Producing the 10 greatest days in racing is a massive effort, one that began even before the checkered flag fell on the 2011 Coca-Cola 600. More than 140 full-time CMS employees, thousands of event-time temporary employees and thousands more in the industry spend countless man hours to produce all of the events that take place around the biggest back-to-back weekends in NASCAR, right here in the greater Charlotte area.

I feel very fortunate to work with some of the best professionals in all of sports that make these past two weeks memorable ones for the hundreds of thousands of fans that make the pilgrimage to the Mecca of Motorsports.

DW:  Okay, moving on...Dover is coming up.  Do we look for another Hendrick car in Victory Lane?

Yes. Johnson could definitely win again. He has a terrific history at Dover. But, don’t be surprised if one of the Roush Fenway fleet breaks Hendrick Motorsports’ win streak. All three RFR cars are very good at Bristol. If you’re looking for a dark horse, try Jamie McMurray.

Follow Adrian Parker on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yoAdrian_Parker.

 

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