Race to Read Night of Fire and Thunder

This year (and last year) the Bandimere Speedway up in Denver has sponsored a reading program through local elementary schools. The kids have to read so many hours and they can earn prizes. Most the things we probably won't use as they are all up in Denver and it is not worth the cost of gas to go get a free kids pizza, unless we are up there already for something else. But after finishing 3 reading sheets, the kids earn a free pass to the Night of Fire and Thunder, which was on May 17. Last year Mark took the 3 older kids to the event, and this year we all went. Drag racing isn't something we normally follow, or even watch, but it was fun to do something different and of course I didn't waste the opportunity to snap lots and lots of pictures. Here are a some of the best. It's rather difficult to get an in-focus picture of cars moving at 130+ miles per hour, but I did manage one or two. Some of the ones that are a bit blurry are still kind of interesting, the obvious motion being a neat effect. On with the picture show.....








Beth with her Bandimere Speedway Race to Read t-shirt she earned for being one of the schools top readers- she completed 8 sheets, at 8 hours of reading each. The top 2 kids had their names put on the reader board during the evening. The top 2 kids read 18 and 12 sheets each. I have a feeling she will be trying to get her name on the board next year ;)

Ed Jones in his Jelly Belly wheelstander. He got out and threw mini bags of Jelly Bellies into the crowd. We picked up some samples from their stand on our way out later in the evening- yum! Brenna was especially impressed with the popcorn flavored jelly bean she got in her bag LOL

2 of the jet dragsters taking off down the track
look at their clocked speeds- wow, that is fast! the top number on each board is the number of seconds they took to get down the track, and the bottom number is their speed in miles per hour.
The "Drag Queen" starts one of her runs- yes, it is a lady driving and yes, she won this heat to make it into the finals. The announcers were having a lively debate over what the color of her car was called all evening.... magenta, mauve, purple, pink, etc.





My favorite picture from the evening, not that I have any particular attachment to this car but the picture came out really well- the focus on the car is crisp, the blurred motion of the track, and how the car is positioned within the frame ;)
as we were making our way out of the track area, we stopped for a minute to see who was waiting to race next and found that they had brought out the souped-up snowmobiles. These little guys can really move!
It was a fun evening!