now late I was.I'd reached at 12.15 for a 12.00 appointment. quickly called Megan and apologized for being late but she said " all is ok,don't worry.Narain is just 10 minutes into his drivers meeting.it'll take a while.let me know where I can spot you and call me from there ".I hung up and then started to wonder..his meeting was at 11.00..did the meeting time get postponed? did he get pissed off that I was not on time? what to do next?
that's when I realized this stupid thing called time zone..Georgia is in Eastern time zone (GMT -5 hours) and Alabama is in central time zone (GMT -6 hours)..meaning my 12.15pm was actually 11.15 am..dang ..so I was actually early.So now, I had all of 45mins to spend before my meeting at north tunnel.
so I went all around the souvenir area..merchandise is a big business for all teams..selling t-shirts, caps, sweatshirts..scale model cars..etc.
earlier during my conversation during planning, I asked Megan to help me with a Pitpass so I could go and watch the race with the team. that would be fun. But it wasn't to be..apparently the teams have to provide all details of their pitpass entries 10 days in advance..NK's manager who I was interacting with communicated with her rather late and therefore all hopes died..so plan was to just meet NK and drive back home..
while I was busy roaming around all the stalls, Megan called me and told me that she was trying some back road approach to get me pitpass..her plan was that she'd come out and take me along with her so I could hang out with NK back at the pits..that'd be awesome right? but luck had other plans and it did not look like a possibility. She did try a lot but things did not work out..in the meanwhile, I waited along at the north tunnel entrance where people who wanted to go to the infield were waiting for their shuttle...
and bang at 12.00 pm local time, I get a call from Megan.."we are waiting around at the main entrance..we can't drive up to the north tunnel ..you'll have to walk over the bridge which has the banner 'this is talladega' and when you get down, you'll find a blue miller lite flag..we are near that in a white Taurus " .."aye aye..I'm on my way"..I told her that..but back in my mind, I was only imagining ..what am I going to look ahead for ? did she find a way to sneak me inside ? did she get me a pass ? what's happening ? in the meanwhile I reached the spot ...and there was the White Taurus..
I reached up and asked her " whats the scene? whats happening next ? that's when NK gets out of the car.." seriously this was the moment of pride..I swear it..a man representing my country was in a typical american sport ..he is one who has driven across a wide array of track cars ranging from Formula 1 to A1 gp to Lemans to Nascar..not too many have in the motorsports field have done this..
after our brief conversation, he autographed this ...
coming up....my conversation with NK..