Awesome Day

Today we went to Charlotte to let Isaac see where they build some of the Nascar cars. Our first stop was Hendrick Motor Sports. They have the cars of Jeff Gordon(Isaac's favorite driver), Jimmy Johnson, Kyle Busch, and Casey Mears. We were visiting one of the shops and met a very nice lady at the desk named Sally(I think this was her name. I hope this is right because she really hooked Isaac up with a great suprise). We were talking about the Hendrick Marrow Program and how much programs like that have helped Isaac and others who needed donors, when she tells us she is going to make a call. She called two more very nice ladies. Isaac met Courtney and Pam. They head up the Hendrick Bone Marrow Program. Courtney asked Isaac if he would like to meet one of Jeff Gordon's crew. He happened to be her husband. Courtney and Pam then proceeded to give Isaac a personal and all access tour of Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson's race shop. He got to see all of the cars as they were being built. He met many of the crew members. They all were probably the friendliest group of people we have ever met. Each one would stop what they were doing and spend some time talking to Isaac. He met Jeff Gordon's spotter who gave Isaac his hat. One crew man gave him some lug nuts off of Jeff Gordon's car. He met Courtney's husband who is Jeff Gordon's gas man. While we were standing there, Jimmy Johnson's crew chief Chad Knaus came up to Isaac and spoke to him for a few moments. All in all it was probably the coolest thing ever. I was about to wet my pants it was so cool. Isaac just took it all in with amazement.

Next we went to several other race shops including Ganassi Racing, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, Ginn Racing and last we went to Penske Racing.
At Penske Racing it was like Deja Vu. The receptionist asked us if he had gotten to see a lot at the other shops. We told her he had been given a behind the scenes tour at Hendrick. As soon as we said that, it was almost as if they didn't want to be outdone. She called up a guy named Gary who is the shop foreman at Penske. That basically means he is the head honcho of the over 200 employees who build the cars for Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch. He the proceeded to put us on a golf cart and give Isaac a personal behind the scenes tour of everything that goes on in their shop. When I say shop, I mean the place is so huge inside that you have to have a golf cart to get from one end to the other. They had over 70 completed race cars for the two drivers with each car costing around $200,000. This was another way cool pee my pants moment and once again Isaac was in awe of everything. He just soaked it all in and you could see his little mind thinking.

Thank you to all of the Nascar folks we visited today, especially to the very nice people at Hendrick Motorsports and Penske Racing. They both won Isaac's heart