West Virginia/Maryland

This weekend was the annual Joel Bender Memorial Nationals that take place in West Virginia and Maryland. It is a Thunderbird event that we like to make it to when we can because it is loaded with lots of good people, good times, fast cars, food, and fun. If you remember we made it to this event last year as well but we also had the luxury of pulling the T-bird on a trailer with the Tundra. This year as you know the Tundra is long gone so we had to get a little creative to fit four people, drag tires, and our luggage all into the Thunderbird.






You like our little extension trailer? It is pretty low to the ground so Kevin had to be cautious but it really helped to free up trunk space! We loaded up and headed on our way Friday morning and made it to our hotel in West Virginia around 6:45 making our trip about 9 hours. After settling into the hotel we headed over to Steve and Linda's house for the meet and greet.



Everyone called it a night pretty early because we had to be at the Mason-Dixon drag way at 7:30 am the next morning for drag day. It was a good thing too because it was hard to get up in the morning...



Poor Leah, she was so tired (note the large drool spot)! The car club rented out the drag strip for the morning so everyone could pretty much get unlimited passes if they wanted.






By the end Kevin finally convinced me to run the car. Since I had brain overload of everything he was trying to teach me in the 30 seconds before my first pass, I kind of forgot to take the car out of second gear. We did find out that she runs pretty fast in second gear, whoops! By my third pass I finally put all the pieces together....






I got a standing ovation for my burnout and ran a 12.75 at 109 mph. Ladies out there I have to say, it was pretty awesome. Enough about me though, Chase was reunited with his girlfriend Haley from last year.



The kids were content playing all morning on one of the car trailers, digging in rocks, or watching the racing.






The drag racing ended around 12:00 and we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the rest of the day. This is what a morning at the drag strip will do to you...



The kids of course couldn't stay asleep or just relax for a while....


They were up and ready to go so Kevin took them for a dip in the pool while I got to relax for a few minutes. Everyone gathered together again around 3:00 pm for an early dinner and then we headed to a local car show.



Overall it was a very fun and exhausting day! Coming up next the official car show.