Easter NASCAR Break

As the wife of a former hauler driver, let me testify on just how long the season can be on the spouses and children of team members.  LONG.  Very, very long.  Even though the season is just a few races young, this break comes on a holiday weekend and around spring break.

The crew members, especially the road crews, are getting some very precious time at home.  Just think about what you have planned for the holiday weekend and next week.  Easter with family, spring break vacation plans, mowing yard, you know the same stuff us folks with normal work schedules do.

I pretty much adjusted to being a single “married” parent, but for the kids, it is always harder.  At the time that Scott was racing, my kids were younger and not involved in a lot of school activities.  We pretty much did what we wanted on the weekends.  We would visit Mimi and Poppy, go see friends and cousins and occasionally go to the race track.

This all changes when the kiddos hit the ages where they are involved in sports and other extracurricular activities. Fortunately, the ARCA series isn’t too demanding throughout the school year and is spread out enough that when Scott was gone, it was mostly during the summer.

But what about the Cup families?  That is a brutal schedule for a single person to manage a life around.  For parents, even harder. Can you imagine your kid playing sports, being in the church play or having some kind of weekend recital?  And where is Mom or Dad?  They are at the racetrack, of course.

So this weekend is for those folks.  The newly married get some time together during the week and a whole weekend.  Dads and Moms can attend baseball and softball games.  Go to swim meets and soccer games.  Maybe go to the beach or the lake for spring break.  Or even take the whole family fishing.

The non-racing parent gets to be good cop for a change.  The racing parent gets almost two whole weeks of just being there, taking the kids to school, maybe picking them up and running the family shuttle service.

I hope each and every team member enjoys this down time and makes the most of it.  Less than a week away, the haulers will be pulling in at Martinsville.  And I have a small little feeling that there is gonna be some highly competitive racing and perhaps some beating and banging to kick off this next long stretch of racing for the summer.