Okay, I’ll ‘fess up. I’ve been sucking at blogging lately. But here’s a tale of the challenges that you get occasionally while trying to make it to a race.
For one of the recent Nationals, I’d stayed up the whole night before, trying to finish up some work before heading to the race. That meant I was really looking forward to jumping on the flight and crashing out. While waiting in the boarding area, I discovered that Antonio Balbi and Adam Chatfield were also on the same flight. This Brazilian and U.K. odd couple have been traveling and teaming together throughout the U.S. Nationals, and they’re both fun (and funny) guys.
So we make it on board, and wait for the plane to back away from the gate…and wait…and wait…and wait. Finally, the Captain gets on the intercom and tells us that plane has a mechanical problem, and that the flight has been canceled.
After gathering our stuff, getting off the plane and waiting through the line at the gate, we get rebooked onto another flight with a different airline that’s a couple hours later. I sit in my seat in the boarding area, dreaming of a nap, while Antonio and Adam go through a batch of their receipts, trying to straighten them out.

Finally, we reboard, and wait…and wait…and wait. Guess what? There’s another mechanical problem, but the Captain on this flight thinks they have a fix. After more waiting, he says we’re good to go, and back away from the gate…only to pull straight back in. The same problem has resurfaced, and this flight also gets canceled. Now it’s back out to the front counter, to get rebooked on another flight…out of a different airport…that’s a red-eye, and eight hours after the last flight was cancelled.

So the total time spent in an airport on a Friday? Eight hours…and we still hadn’t gotten anywhere. That’s the most time I think I’d ever spent in an airport where it wasn’t a weather-related problem. Sheesh.
Oh, and we eventually did make it to our destination. Antonio and Adam hitched a ride in the Vital MX rental car, and we made it to the track in plenty of time for those guys to practice in…even if we were all a little short on sleep.