Car Wars, a crash 'em up kinda night

L. went to Beech Ridge Speedway with her friend to see "Car Wars" and said it was fun and that I needed to see it for myself (i.e., L. wanted to go again). So this past Friday night Fino, G. and I went with L. and another friend to the speedway.

It was an interesting night of car smashing and on-track antics. I would admit I did worry about the drivers rolling over and smashing in to each other and winced every time it happened (and as expected I did A LOT of that at the speedway). But as I learned from the crowd, more rollovers and smashing = louder cheers so I tried to get myself in to the spirit of things. But L. and her friend had no trouble with it all and cheered and laughed with the rest of the crowd. 

All the cars had names and many of them also had props as well. This I found highly amusing and G. had a great time taking pictures. Each one was unique.

The thing about the strapped-on props L. told me is that they sometimes fly off in a crash. Within minutes of the explanation, G. caught a demonstration of just that.

Note the airborne stuffed dog above the roof of the "Junkyard Dog" van during a roll over.

After each wave of cars did their lap races around the track a few times the ramp was brought out. The crowd was asked to rate (thumbs up or down with lots of yelling) how well each one did running up the ramp and then driving on two wheels down the track.

More often than not, to the delight of the crowd, the two wheel stunts turned in to roll overs. And when sparks when flying, the crowd seemed to cheer even louder.

And the rollovers did not seem of any concern to the speedway crew. They simply pulled out the bulldozer and flipped the cars back over within minutes.

My girls and their friend gave the evening a laughing thumbs up. I can't say it will be a weekly event for us but an annual summer outing is likely.

And in case you've never been to the speedway, they have different events each week. With admission for kids 12 and under being free, and adult tickets $6-$8 (for Thursday Thunder & Friday Car Wars nights, the Saturday NASCAR night prices vary), it can be an inexpensive night out for the family.

My 11-year-old friend S. brought his camera to the speedway and took a lot of video footage. Below is a compilation of it, which makes me smile because his laughing and brief commentary while recording is pretty darn cute. He is clearly a big fan of the speedway.