PRI Tradeshow, Hickory Test and All the Rest!

I left the Kelowna Airport with my dad Sunday morning on our way to Charlotte, NC. The trip down there went relativity smoothly without any lost luggage, the only hitch was our own misdoing. When we arrived in Dallas we had one more flight to catch to get to Charlotte, unfortunately my cell phone didn't update to the local time and I thought we had a while before our next flight. We grabbed dinner at  a restaurant nearby our gate and when we finished we realized we had missed our flight and they had apparently been calling us non stop.

This resulted in us having to re-book our flight for the next day, but the bright side was we got to stay in a fancy 5 star hotel for cheap thanks to the airline. When we finally got there Monday afternoon we visited the Race 101 shop and Tony Blanchard and then checked into our hotel.  The next day wasn't looking so hot for weather but we had to do what we could to get the test session in because I would be traveling to Florida the next day and my dad would be headed home.

Luckily enough the rain held off just long enough on Tuesday to get our test session at Hickory Motor Speedway in, which was a blast. Despite my suit zipper breaking on scene I still had an awesome time driving the Race 101 test car around the historic Hickory Motor Speedway. That night me, my dad and a fellow student Brandon Atkinson took to the go kart track in Mooresville The Pit. I'm happy to report I beat my dad go karting for the first time ever and held off Brandon until the last lap! 

Wednesday morning at 5am Anna Marie picked my dad and I up at our hotel and dropped my dad off at the airport while she and I headed on to the PRI show in Orlando Florida! We drove all day on a straight flat road ( I-95) to get there and I took a turn driving at Jacksonville. We got into Orlando around 5:30 and checked into our hotel room. We waited for Luke Whitteker to arrive and went out for dinner at the Cuba Libre which was a snazzy little restaurant just down from the convention center on International Drive. 

The first day of PRI was overwhelming there were so many people and vendors I didn't know where to start! It was a long day of meeting people and talking about new products and as the day finally came to a close my feet hurt from so much walking but it was worth it. I ran into a friend of mine Tyler Case who was with Scott Steckly (Nascar Canadian Tire Series Champion) and his crew chief Julio, we all went out for dinner at the Olive Garden and then spent a while talking racing. It was kewl to hang with the Champion of the Series I hope to run!

The rest of the time at PRI was much of the same made some interesting contacts and hopefully something wil come of that. But my flight home was a nightmare!

I arrived at the airport at 4am for my 6 am flight, which after an hour of trying to get signed in and waiting in enormous lines I found out my flight was cancelled, and I could'n t be re-booked until 6pm! I spent the entire day in the airport trying to keep occupied until 4pm when I could get through security and get my boarding passes!

When I finally arrived home at 1am my time it had been a 26 hour day and I would be getting 4 hours of sleep before I had to head off to work!


All in all it was an amazing trip can't say enough about the whole Race 101 group and everything they have done for me this year! Although it was tiring too......