Happy Birthday, Baby!!!

For Collin’s 30th birthday, I gave him the Richard Petty Driving School “rookie experience”. This weekend, for his 32nd birthday, he finally cashed it in. We left the kids with my Mom and Dad and headed to Charlotte Saturday morning. We shopped on Saturday, stayed downtown Saturday night, and were at Lowes Motor Speedway at 11:00 Sunday for his class. We chose this track because it’s one of Collin’s favorites, and it’s less than a mile from a major outlet mall. The plan was for me to drop Collin off and then head to the mall and shop while he did the “drive way too fast and hopefully not kill yourself” thing. Well, I never made it to the mall. I stayed for the entire thing, and, much to my surprise, LOVED it!

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Collin took this pic for Mak. He LOVES garages!2008-04-13-10-46-003.JPG

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Collin got “suited up” and headed out for some instruction, so I took the camera and tried to just capture what was going on. I LOVED seeing Collin go through all of it. I’m so glad I didn’t go shopping. I would have hated to miss it!2008-04-13-10-46-009.JPG

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I was able to get up close to a ton of race cars and other “race” things (I’m not much of a Nascar girl…don’t really know the terms!). I kept thinking over and over, I WISH Makgill was with me! He would have LOVED it!2008-04-13-10-46-021.JPG

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I thought the Amish woman cap he had to wear under the helmet was cute!2008-04-13-10-46-049.JPG

Before driving, he did a ride along with a professional driver.2008-04-13-10-46-060.JPG

They were so safe. He had all of the professional safety gear on.2008-04-13-10-46-070.JPG

Getting ready…

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There he goes! Over 160 miles per hour!!! Surprisingly, I wasn’t even nervous. I KNEW he was in heaven!

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I wish I could have captured the look on his face better. I’ve only seen it three times before. Our wedding day, and the days that Mak and CB were born. He was in awe!

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Next it was time to drive!2008-04-13-10-46-098.JPG

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I’m SO GLAD we did this! An amazing experience…for both of us. I’ll remember his face when he got out of that racecar forever!

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3 comments
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  • GillianApril 14, 2008 - 7:39 pm

    OH MY GOSH!!! THAT IS TOO COOL!!! I had NO idea you could do that! You guys get to do the coolest things! I can’t wait to hear more about it! Aron, you did a great job capturing the experience!ReplyCancel

  • Brandon, Jessica, Parson and LilahApril 14, 2008 - 7:51 pm

    Way Cool!! Look out Tony Stewart… Collin M Smith is next in line!ReplyCancel

  • DyanApril 20, 2008 - 8:00 pm

    Collin, Looks like there is a virus or something on your page. My virus scan has caught each time I visit. However, it looks like you had a great birthday!ReplyCancel