On the spur of the moment, my sister, Kelly, and I decided to go to Pocono. We left at 1am on Friday morning, and it was a six hour drive. I drove the entire way while Kelly slept.
We got to the track at about 7:30. After walking around the trailers, we decided to check out the garage area. Kelly went to look at Michael Waltrip's garage while I went to the other end.
I decided on the perfect place for me to stand. It was actually in front of Casey Mears' garage, but Larry's garage was directly to my left, and Mike Skinner's was directly to my right. I could also see some of Steve Park's garage.
I watched the crews for a few hours while they were working on the cars. When it was time for practice, I saw Larry come over to his car. I yelled his name and he looked over, smiled and waved. Then he got in his car.
I found Kelly and we walked out to pit row and found a spot to stand during pracice.
Larry came off the track and started coming down pit road. He kept getting slower and slower until he stopped right in front of me and Kelly.
We were in pit #35. After he stopped he took off his helmet. He then started coming out of the car. He made eye contact with me and then he slid back in the car. He took off the rest of his HANS
device that had gotten caught and he slid out of the car.
When he was out, he came right over to the hood and opened it. He was looking at it for a few minutes when his crew came running over. They asked him what was wrong, and he told them.
They tried to get the car going again, but it wouldn't start. So, Larry helped the crew push it back to the garage. They stopped Larry when they were about to make the turn, and Larry got in and the car started up. They brought it back to the garage to work on it.
Later on, Larry was walking down pit road during qualifying signing autographs. I had a little picture of Larry and Kelly that was taken at the preview in my wallet, so I had him sign that.
He smiled when he saw the picture. I told him, "good luck...again." He looked up and recognized me from before, and he said, "thank you... again!"
He signed Kelly's picture and I asked Kelly to lean in so I could take a picture of them. Larry heard me and he leaned in and smiled. What a sweetheart! :o)
