These pictures were taken with our Nikon Coolpix 5700 which is a 5 mega pixel with 8 power optical zoom camera.
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Our first stop on Saturday was the Richard Childress Museum in Welcome, NC. This was Michael's favorite place. This was all part of RCR's old race shop. |
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RCR Chassis No. 5 This car began as a No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet Monte Carlo in 1987 and was a workhorse during RCR's championship run that year. It won four of the six races it was run in 1987 and finished second in the other two. |
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It's final victory, April 16, 1989, at North Wilkesboro Speedway, was the first NASCAR Winston Cup race that radial tires were used. It ran 15 races from March 1987 to April 1989, won six and finished every race in the Top 10. |
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RCR Chassis No. 10 This car won the 1995 Busch Clash at Daytona. It was Earnhardt's 6th and final victory in the All-Star Race. The Only other time this car ran in competition was in the 1994 Busch Clash, where it won the 1st segment and finished 3rd in the second segment. |
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We got a kick out of this sign! |
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RCR Chassis No. 64 Dale drove the No. 3 Oreo Chevrolet Monet Carlo to a 2nd place finish in the 2001 Budweiser Shootout. Dale was leading with two laps to go when Tony Stewart got by and won by .145 seconds. The special paint scheme was part of a promotional program with Nabisco. |
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Michael hates having his picture but I talked him into a photo with this very special car. | |
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This is the car Richard Childress drove the Pace Laps during the NASCAR Victory Lap celebration for RJR. | |
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It was in this room that the research and development of the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Lumin prototypes took place in secrecy and under tight security. The development of the Lumina laid the foundation for RCR's MASCAR Winston Cup championships in 1990-91 and 1993-94. All of the approvals for the return of the Monte Carlo in 1995 and its revised body style for the 2000 season were done here. | |
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Fabrication Room Despite NASCAR's strict template tolerances, all of the work in the fabrication shop was, and still is, done by hand. The major tools used in the process of constructing the bodies are welders, hammers, sheet metal cutters and the English Wheel, a piece of equipment used for shaping metal whose basic technology is hundreds of years old. |
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These are some of Dale's special paint schemes for the Busch Clash/Budweiser Shootout. | |
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This is the car Kevin got his 1st win in | |
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Kevin blew out the tires doing victory donuts | |
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Sam Bass murals on the gift shop wall. |
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A Harry Gant car in the Winston Cup Museum. |
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Kinda looks like a regular carseat! |
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Monday we went on a Race Shop Tour. They took us around to a bunch of shops. It was great to have someone else doe the driving! The 1st stop was Joe Gibb's Racing. This is Tony's winning car from Watkins Glen. |
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Some special paint scheme uniforms of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart. |
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Terry's car from Watkin's Glen. He didn't get to run much before he had transmission problems. |
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Bobby's show car in he lobby. |
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What we could see of Hendrick's #24 and #48 shop through their viewing windows. |
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One of the trophy walls at Hendrick's |
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Show cars in the lobby. |
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The #5 and #25 cars are in a separate shop next door. |
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A replica of Terry Labonte's 1996 Winston Cup trophy in the Hendrick's Museum. |
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Me by one of Terry's cars. |
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Ken Schrader took a wild ride in this #25 Budweiser car. |
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One of Terry's uniforms and trophies. |
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This is Joe Nemechek's 01 car at MBV Racing. It's the car he just raced at Watkins Glen - see the donut on the door. |
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Scott Rigg's #10 from Watkins Glen also shows some race damage. MBV is a pretty small operation and actually let us in the shop area. |
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Roush Racing - this was the Greg Biffle side of the shop. |
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Here's the Mark Martin section. |
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You can see where this car slid on the roof and melted part of the roll bar! | |
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Todd is currently running a Roush truck in the Craftman's Truck series. | |
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The Chip Ganassi Racing shop was pretty quiet. |
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A lady on the tour asked me if that was David Stremme standing there. It was so I started hunting for one of his cards! When he finished talking he came over and signed it for me. |
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The haulers back from Watkins Glen at Penski Racing. |
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Penski has the most fan friendly shop. A Fan walk high above the shop floor - WITH NO GLASS WINDOWS - great for pictures! |
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We were told this beautiful blue car will be run at the Bristol night race. |
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Getting a motor ready for Rusty. |
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The building down the center houses offices. |
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You can see the differences in the noses for big tracks and short tracks. |
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Lot of cars getting prepared! |
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Yates just had tiny viewing windows into the shop with show cars and a gift shop. |
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and that ends our Race Shop Tour. |
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Tuesday we took ourselves out to Evernham Racing - which is way out in the middle of no where! |
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We were told that Jermey Mayfield & Kasey Kahne were going to be there for a photo shoot. I whipped out my cards and waited. Pretty soon they came along and I got autographs. Unfortunately I didn't even think to take pictures! |
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Then we went to Rusty Wallace Racing. |
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Canon Square in Kannapolis has a great Dale Earnhardt tribute. |
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This is a 9 foot tall bronze statue. |
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These Sam Bass murals are inside the Kannapolis Visitor's Center. |
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Wednesday we drove out to the Richard Petty Museum. . | |
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This painting of four Petty generations hangs at the museum entrance. |
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This is a Lee Petty car. | |
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Richard Petty's last race - he wrecked but the team fixed the car so he could finish the last few laps. |
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Adam Petty's ARCA car. |
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He won the 1st ARCA race he entered. |
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Then we went over to the Victory Junction Camp. | |
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There were children in the camp so there were no tours available. |
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But we could see the brightly painted buildings and the adorable one shaped like Adam's car. |
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This is the "catch & release" pond where everybody gets to fish. |
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Thursday we went back to RCR because we found out you can go in the shop area. We saw Dave Blaney's hauler headed to Michigan. Jeff Burton and Kevon Harvick's haulers were still being loaded. |
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RCR has a fan walk similar to the one at Penski - but it has glass windows. |
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Wonder if this Jeff Burton car is getting ready for Michigan? |
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Our final stop was DEI. The Race Shop tour had stopped there on Monday but it was kinda crowded - so we went back yo take pictures. | |
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This is Martin Turex, Jr's Busch Champion car. |
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DEI didn't have a shop viewing area. Just some display cars. |
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