Monday, we went to Lime Rock Park with our friends Carl and Josh to take in a day of racing under blue, sunny skies. It was a postcard day -- warm but not too hot and breezy -- and we had a great time.
I describe Lime Rock as the Tanglewood of motorsports -- there are no seats, just green hills and trees. Except instead of strings and horns, you hear the thunder of finely-tuned racing engines and the squeal of tires. I had not been in 10 years and Michelle had not been since she was a girl, so we were both looking forward to attending.
As for Sofia: She has a need for speed. Don't know if that's just the way she is or if I taught her that by watching racing on TV and pushing the shopping cart at the supermarket like I was Steve McQueen, but at any rate, one day last year I was at the computer when she came in from the living room and said "daddy, the race is on."
So when she saw me watching youtube footage of cars taking laps at Lime Rock, she was immediately curious. So we packed the earplugs along with a picnic and headed out to the track.
Sofia got to be friends pretty quickly with Josh and Carl, who came down Sunday night.
In fact, after Josh, Carl and I went over to the paddock to check out all the internal combustion-fired goodness, we happened upon Michelle and Sofia on the way back ... they had come over to find us because, as Michelle explained, Sofia wanted to know "Where did those boys go?"
(That phrase will be the death of me in 10 years.)
Sofia also picked a favorite car out of the pack. And she did it the way any 4-year-old would: by color. Here she is with her favorite ride, the No. 90 Automatic Racing BMW M3:
They finished 29th out of a field of 35. But their teammates won the race!
All in all, a great day. I got to drive Carl's BMW (woohoo!), we saw some great racing, Sofia enjoyed herself immensely and we enjoyed the company of our friends.
All that excitement kept Sofia awake until 9 p.m. We'll see how tonight goes...
