he new year began with a frigid bang of a trip to Talladega, Alabama for the 34th running of the Ice Bowl at the Talladega Short Track.
I arrived to the speedway on Friday, in a bit of disarray after having spent hours attempting to recover from a Facebook hack. Unfortunately, that was unsuccessful and I had to create a new account.
The Talladega Short Track was the first racetrack I hit the Like button for before heading North.
Once I got to the track, it wasn’t long before I was in the infield, shooting various hot lapping sessions and heat races.
I was taken aback by the car count… some 420 racecars on the property. So many, that I couldn’t park in the area I normally would because racecars were there instead.
So, hot laps and heat races took up the majority of the day for my Ice Bowl Friday.
The night concluded with a set of features, and yet more heat races for the economy four cylinder class. I’m not ashamed to admit that by that point of the evening, I bailed. It was time to head to the hotel, clean up, warm up and get some rest. Saturday was going to be busy.
Compared to last year, my first time covering this event, I was very much prepared to rock and roll this year. I felt comfortable with my surroundings and comfortable in general; being better dressed for the occasion. One thing to remember about the Ice Bowl is that it is indeed cold.
For the second year in a row I teamed up with Reid Scott and Liberty Racing Review. This year, fellow LRR content creators Steven Newbold and JP French also attended. Together, we provided comprehensive coverage of the weekend from front to back. If you somehow haven’t yet found LRR, search them out on social media and when you see their articles, click through to the website and give them a read… you won’t be disappointed.
So, the day time portion of the Ice Bowl Saturday was dominated by B-Mains to set the following features. This process took forever, as yellow after yellow flew. Tempers flared, cars began to fly, and restarts were a plenty.
After what seemed like an eternity, the feature races were upon us. Suddenly, I found myself dashing to get into place to capture the start of the main event. I kinda missed it, but even in the features there were still plenty of cautions. The pace picked up, and the features kind of felt like they flew by.
Perhaps the most annoying bit was trying to capture victory lane photos while the next feature was rolling. I missed the start of a couple of features because of that.
As the night drew on, and the cold set in, I began to look hard for that final checkered flag.
Now, I have confession to make. There were a set of features I skipped. After the final A-main, the lineup reset for Non-qualifier features. That was the line for me. I was cold, hungry and had plenty of fun for one weekend. I wasn’t concerned with races for the drivers that didn’t make the race, but I hope they had fun.
For me, it was time to head out, head over to a local Buffalo Wild Wings, and have a nice dinner with friends.