I am so bored. It’s Thursday and there is nothing worse than sitting in a media center all day long while it rains outside. A girl can’t even take a reasonable walk to do her business around here!
We are at Road Atlanta in bucolic Braselton, GA, home of the 13th annual Petit Le Mans. We flew from Los Angeles, spending the entire day Tuesday getting here and even had to make a stop in Dallas to change planes.
That was okay because we were able to stretch and walk a bit. At the Los Angeles airport, mom had to remove my (frozen) Deli Fresh food roll from the suitcase because the TSA thought it was dangerous. Might be for them, but certainly not for me. It’s food, guys, get over it!
We got to the track on Wednesday and the weather cooperated, so we took some good walks and talked to people for quite a while. Then I sat around while mom shot some photos. We went to our no-tell motel in Lawrenceville, GA and walked out for dinner with Uncle AJ, who found the room for us. It actually turned out to be a fairly nice place and pretty convenient for the track. Thanks Uncle AJ.
He woke us up really early this morning and we got to the track by 7AM, to be in time for the photo meeting at 7:30. Mom took me out for a few walks and then went off to interview some guy from Porsche. It was raining again when she came back so that kind of ruined our options for the balance of the afternoon.
Now she’s typing and I’m doing what I do best – sleeping – while nine cars rumble by in the wet stuff. Mom keeps saying she’s going to go out and shoot a little bit but she hasn’t gotten up and actually done it, so I guess she’s lying, right?
The balance of our weekend was more of the same for me: sleep in the media center while Mom works and take walks when it’s quiet. I discovered there were a few really good places to sniff – even though Road Atlanta swears they don’t allow dogs, I can sniff out a fellow member of the clan in no time at all.
Qualifying took place on Friday and then we went to the Mazda party where they celebrated championship winners in Skip Barber, Formula 2000 and Star Mazda series, all powered by guess who? Mazda, silly people! We felt right at home after driving around in a Mazda2 last week – it was the same color as Mom’s toenails, fluorescent green. Anyway, the party was neat; I got some cheese under the table and a few veggies to munch on.
I have to tell you, the folks who run the media center at Road Atlanta are really accommodating to a doggie like me. They have a cooler so Mom can keep my food fresh – we arrive so early and leave so late it would be silly to carry it back and forth from the track – and Megan kept my water cup so we didn’t have to make a new one. The water bowl Aunt Cheryl gave us in April sprung a leak so we had to use a cut-down coffee cup. Mom likes to recycle, you know?
On race night, after it was finally all said and done and the darn fireworks were finished scaring me, the winners all came in to say hello and scratch my ears. Uncle Marino Franchitti gave me some special loving – he and his brother Dario are so cool and both of them were winners on Saturday (Dario won the IndyCar Series championship and Marino won his class in LM P2 and was part of the championship-winning Highcroft Racing team).
Then we came home on Sunday. No place like home but what a pain getting here. We couldn’t leave until 3:30PM in the afternoon so Mom fed me late (and I wasn’t terribly interested). We went for some walkies before heading to the airport and then it was time for “last chance” on doing my business.
We were upgraded on the first flight and met a neat lady named Kristen and sat in steerage on the second flight. The guy who was supposed to have the middle seat decided to take over all three seats (he was really big) so when he elbowed Mom she bitched a bit and he moved, leaving us with an open middle seat. Then the flight attendants said it wasn’t permitted for me to sit there, under FAA rules, so I sat on Mom’s lap the rest of the flight. They keep changing those rules by the minute, don’t they?
Anyway, we’re back in Long Beach, where the terribly hot weather we had before leaving for Atlanta has turned cold and rainy. Not sure if I like either one of those but this is definitely better than that.
I’ve attached a couple of photos: one is of me with our friend Carbon Chris and the other is of the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (in the rain on Thursday) that got Mom all excited this weekend.
Ciao for now - Leah
