Summer Road Trip 2012

Every few years, I try to save up some money and take a big summer road trip. Obviously, as I get more involved in racing, it gets to be more and more difficult. Likewise, being married and have a two-and-a-half year old adds an entirely new element of adversity to planning such a trip.

My 2009 summer road trip took me as far west as Gillette Thunder Speedway in Wyoming.

But this summer, the blueprint has been laid out for a New England journey that will take my wife and I to seven races in six different states over the course of eight days.  It's a fairly ambitious trip with plenty of time for leisure thrown in as well.  The schedule is as follows:

June 29 - Brewerton Speedway (Brewerton, NY)
June 30 a.m. - Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, NY)
June 30 p.m. - Bear Ridge Speedway (Bradford, VT)
July 1 - Legion Speedway (Rumney, NH)
July 2 - fun day
July 3 - Canaan Fair Speedway (Canaan, NH)
July 4 - Oxford Plains Speedway (Oxford, ME)
July 5 - Thompson Int'l Speedway (Thompson, CT)
July 6 - Seekonk Speedway (Seekonk, MA)
July 7 - Braves vs. Phillies (Phladelphia, PA)

We'll start off at the "D-Shaped Dirt Demon", Brewerton Speedway.  Although I've already been to races at eight different tracks in the Empire State, this will be my first ever visit to Brewerton.  The following day, we'll spend half a day at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  This will be Jayme's first ever trip to the historic venue, my second.  That night, it's off to Bear Ridge Speedway for my first ever race in the state of Vermont followed by my first ever race in New Hampshire at Legion Speedway on Sunday.

Monday and part of Tuesday will be reserved for some R&R in Bar Harbor, Maine.  We'll follow that up with our final dirt race of the trip, a stop at the Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, NH.  The final three shows are all asphalt races.  Wednesday's short trip back across the state line will find us at Oxford Plains Speedway in Maine, Thursday's journey will take us south to Thompson International Speedway in Connecticut, and Friday's voyage will have us venturing over to Seekonk Speedway in Seekonk, Massachusetts.  Each of those three events will be my first races in their respective states.

Our trip will wrap up with a Saturday evening baseball game to watch Jayme's beloved Braves battle their rival Philadelphia Phillies.

All-in-all, it should be a fun trip that would help bring my "career" race-chasing totals up to 162 tracks in 33 states...if everything works out as planned.   Of course, that's a big "if".

What I like about this trip is that I've tried to keep everything within reasonable distance of everything else, which will allow us to spend a good bit of time taking in the sights in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Whether she's shopping, I'm hiking, or we're grabbing a bite to eat at one of the local hot spots, I'm sure it'll be a trip we remember for a long time.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to visiting so many new race tracks too.  :)