He's in the Money!

He's officially a pro driver because he came in 9th place,

which means, he got paid!

Today's race was very exciting as Nick battled to get in the first pack.

The top 15 cars were pretty close together for a while, but in the words of his coach,

the pack Nick was in wasn't working well together.

The draft is so important in this series--especially at Daytona.

The draft works to everyone's advantage when they stick together.

You have to be strategic, though, because of course you're trying to pass people too.

It's easiest to pass the car in front, because you're being propelled by that draft,

and even better if two cars pass at the same time.

The front pack was battling it out and the second pack, where Nick was driving was super close behind them, but one driver was looking out for himself rather than working with the other cars and kept trying to get past everyone, breaking up the draft and making the second pack fall behind.

(Okay, I may not have explained this exactly correctly because I'm still trying to learn how it works,

but this is how I understand it. Also, I met that guy and my mom spidey-senses were on alert.

So when they said it was his car, I wasn't a bit surprised.)

This was a morning race, and all the volunteers were arriving for the big Rolex 24-hour event

the next day so we couldn't sneak into the box where we watched yesterday.

So we watched from the stands and kind of liked being outside and hearing the action

(muffled by headphones. I was listening to Tom Lake, narrated by Meryl Streep and it is AmAzing.)

Another rookie on Nick's team, Nathan, was having a race of a lifetime right up with the leaders,

but unfortunately one car bumped another and spun out. Nathan tried to avoid the spinning car and spun out himself and they both went flailing around the track right in front of us.

That put two of the leaders out of the race

(we weren't secretly glad or anything because we're cheering for everyone to have a clean race),

and created a full-course yellow which means the safety car comes out, everyone follows, no passing,

and you can get bunch back up again.

The race started again, but close to the end two cars hit each other taking out two leaders,

and another started smoking. Suddenly Nick was in 11th place.

As he came around the last corner, his spotter (coach) gave him the signal, 

and he pulled out in front of the car in front of him to pass.

He was crossing his fingers the girl right behind him would pull out too.

She did, which gave him extra momentum (literally), so he could get past the other car 

just as they crossed the finish line.

He took 10th and she took 11th. 

I wasn't sure how the rest of his team and one of the dads whose son got out would respond 

since his kid got out because someone hit him and missed out on winning.

Like would they qualify his 10th place finish with a, 
"well, it isn't really 10th because the best five crashed."

But no! They were so excited! Crashing is an unfortunate part of racing and "part of the game."

That dad grabbed Nick and was so excited!

He's the first one to say, "You're not an amateur anymore! You just got paid!"

It was really fun to see everyone so generous with their praise.

Nick ended up in 9th, technically, because one of the guys that caused the crash got a 10 second penalty which put him right behind Nick. And probably behind the girl that pushed Nick in.

We'd planned to stay in Florida through Saturday night so we could watch some of the 24-hour.

Dan was very excited about how cool it would look to see the headlights racing around the track at night.

However, Nick wanted to get home to do homework (and maybe see a girl he likes...).

Dan was changing the flights for all of us last night until I told him,

to have fun at home. I was staying. It's warm and we have a view of the ocean.

And once again we remembered Nick is in college and we're empty nesters and can do what we want.

So Nick went home with his coach (who was planning to leave that afternoon anyway),

and we stayed.

I took an evening walk on the beach and even though I got a blister from walking in barefeet,

this is the ethereal view I was rewarded with.