Day Two – Vegas – Planes, Police and V8s.
Miles driven – 111
Miles walked – 11.2
5am and I’m $3 down, maybe its time to call it a night…
My first night in Vegas, what a wonderfully crazy place. Like Blackpool on steroids.
The strip is filled with one extravagant hotel/casino after another. Grand Canal, Eifel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. They’re all here!
I missed pancake day on Tuesday, so breakfast made up for that. The American way. (Oi! I said no pictures of your own food! Ed)
The morning was spent around the Nellis Air Force base. Three times a year they do combat training exercises called Red Flag and this was one of those days.
F15s, F16s, a couple of B52s, A10s and F35s. If these numbers mean anything to you then you can probably understand what a spectacle it was.
There was a slight incident with a police man, turns out there are certain things that the Military don’t like you taking photos of. Passport checked I was allowed to stay in the U.S.
Back to the strip, we explored the Imperial Palace Auto Collection
We returned to the Nellis area of Vegas for the evening. This time it was to check out Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Being a NASCAR track means it’s an extremely well kept facility. The NASCAR boys were in fact coming to town at the weekend.
The crews were setting up all the various parts of the show. One thing that struck me was the size of the merchandise trailers. They’re bigger than a lot of European race teams race trailers!
Because NASCAR was here it also meant that the ‘World of Outlaws’ sprint cars had a two day event at the dirt oval in the grounds of the Speedway.
I’d never seen oval racing live, nor dirt track racing. It was incredible.
Two lap qually runs for each car, followed by eight lap heats keeps the show fast paced and entertaining. The cars themselves are insane, around the half mile oval the sprint cars were clocking an average speed of over 120mph.
We have Journey playing as we leave the neon metropolis and head towards the Grand Canyon.
DB
