We’ve come to our first road course of the year, and I’ve come to my first race of the year! I’m in Houston as I type this, and Austin bound!
Here’s what to look for:
–William Byron is our polesitter here…again, and looks to improve that 9.3 average finish. He has one Top 5 in those three attempts. Clearly he can start, how will today’s race end for him?
–Tyler Reddick was our winner last year, and getting a lot of looks this year, too. In fact, he’ll be starting 3rd! He’s got the most points earned of any driver at COTA so far (tied with Chastain, see below).
–Ross Chastain was our previous winner (we’ve only run three races at COTA!), and he’s secured a 6th place starting position for today’s race. Will it be more of the same for our previous drivers, or can someone else break in?
–Chase Elliott was our inaugural winner, and still our best road course driver in the Cup Series. He’s been on a bit of a drought though, can this be the thing to knock the dust off?
-And we’ve gotta end this list with Shane Van Gisbergen. He shocked the motorsports world last year by taking the checkers at the first ever Chicago Street Course race in NASCAR. He’s from Australia, and hadn’t run a single NASCAR race prior to that. Pretty incredible if you think about it, and would you believe he was 4th in Practice yesterday? SVG rolls off 12th.
Alright! We’ve been exploring different parts of Houston in preparation for our trek this morning to Austin. Here are some things we’ve encountered…
Lisa and I head down to the Kemah Boardwalk on Friday, and it was pretty cool! Kids were in school so the place was DEAD when we got there. Off in the distance you can see the Boardwalk Bullet, a wooden roller coaster that was awesome. We rode it twice; once immediately where we were the only people on it and sat up front, the second time we sat in the back with one guy in front who got yelled at for having his phone out, haha.
We primarily went down to Houston so Lisa could take in Hell’s Heroes VI, a three day metal festival featuring Queensryche and some other bands that she likes and is aware of. I got stuck waiting in a merch line and talked to this dude for over an hour! If someone knows this dude, put him in touch with me here! Great guy!
Went for a substantial walk at Memorial Park. Pretty cool place, very natural but also well paved.
Stopped at the Hobbit Cafe on Saturday, a Lord of the Rings themed restaurant with the gigantic four patty “Morgoth burger” featuring all kinds of crazy stuff. Upcoming is a series of pictures. Come along with me on this journey. I was very confident!…
Humanity failed today. This is why disposing of the One Ring was put in the hands of the Hobbit. Frodo was able to get done what man could not. I thought about his trials while ripping through mine before hitting a wall. What you see left on my plate is the straw that broke the camels back. I did not consume it, and if I did, we’d have a much different picture. Isildor, fellow human, walked away with the Ring and felt pretty good about it. I, on the other hand, struggled to walk away and kept foraging forth. What you see here is a man in the same vein as Gollum, who went to the end of the world for this burger, and was swallowed by flame with failure before him. So sad to tap out with literally a gumball sized piece of beef and two buns. Missed out on the free t-shirt, too. GOSH DARN IT!!
Later on we ended up at the Cidercade, and we played some top down Galaga…
Lisa played Iron Maiden pinball in her Iron Maiden hoodie…
And I had the 5th best score on Arcade Bubble Bobble! Nice! So long, Houston! Off to Austin!
Coverage of the race today starts on FOX at 3:30pm, green flag scheduled for 3:49pm.
Roc Sports NOW 