The IRL was going to race in Atlanta for the first time. An old girlfriend of mine moved there several years ago and she was going to let me stay in her apartment. She didn't want to go to the race, however, my Uncle Jim lives in Atlanta and said he wanted to go.

I got up early and drove from Indianapolis to Atlanta. It took me 8 hours to get there. The drive down I-75 took me through the Smokey Mountains or Appalachians as I sped through Kentucky and Tennesee. I went through towns such as Louisville, Lexington, Knoxville and Chattanooga. I stayed in northern Atlanta and the Atlanta Motor Speedway is around 15 miles south of downtown Atlanta.

It was too late to go to the track once I arrived. I should have left Thursday and then I could have spent Friday at the track and maybe met up with my old friend Andy Hillenburg, who was competing in the ARCA race Friday night. It was Atlanta Motor Speedway's first night race.

I bought Friday's paper. There was a picture of an Indy car on the front of the Sports section and a little article about some of the drivers. Inside, there was a bigger article about Greg LeMond (Tour de France bycyclist) who was going to compete in the Formula Ford 2000 race before the start of the first Atlanta 500! Ha, whatever. There were more articles about NASCAR, who wasn't even in town.

The article about the ARCA driver's death was on the front page of the sports section. I look through the rest of the section. One article by a Mr. Steve Hummer refers to the Indy Cars as "gnats" and "weird looking". It was obviously an opinion piece and not a news story. It was also obvious he had never even seen an Indy Car race. I thought it was strange how he was slamming an event that was doing nothing but helping out their community. On the very same page as Hummer's article, were several paragraphs about IRL drivers who were behind big charities that were helping out the poor of Atlanta - one driver was giving 15 tons of food to the needy! But Hummer only reported that he was disappointed that the IRL was not giving away beef jerky and cigarettes in the press box like the Nascar Winston Cup guys.

BTW, Atlanta has around 3 million people and considers itself an "international" city. So, it is much larger than Indianapolis. I don't know their percentage of foreigners there, but they seem to have a very integrated society, where as Indy is pretty segregated. Their highways are wider, the traffic is worse and people seem to drive faster. It was hilly and it was hot - in the 90's. They were also having some problem with their ozone...

Uncle Jim came and picked me up. Unlike the Indy Speedway, which you can approach from a dozen directions, the Atlanta Speedway has one highway leading to it. Consequently, the traffic jam started pretty far away. The parking was free.

I was very impressed as I walked towards the track.

Once inside at my seat, I could see all the way around the 1.54 mile oval! However, I wished that I would have brought my binoculars. Also, I couldn't hear anything from the loud speaker system, so a radio with headphones would have helped a lot.

They only sold tickets to the Main Grandstand, Petty Grandstand and North Grandstand. Also, they did not let anyone sit in the first 15 rows because of what happened in Michigan a month ago at that CART race where some suspension parts went flying over the fence and killed 3 people. I thought that was pretty goofy. Anyway, they have other stands around most of this track that remained empty. I think they had around 40-50,000 people show up, which was pretty good condsidering. I saw people wearing NASCAR clothing and I saw just as many wearing their INDY 500 stuff. And to my surprise, I even saw some IRL gear!

The IRL race was great. It was LOUD and it was FAST! Billy Boat had the pole at 224 MPH. My favorite driver, Scott Goodyear, soon moved into the lead. He was SCREAMING around that track.

I was soon reminded of the 1972 hit song, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

A row of lights atop my grandstand malfunctioned 54 laps into the race, leading to a yellow flag while officials tried to solve the problem.

After a six-lap caution period, the race resumed when the drivers reported the dark spot didn't bother them. Eventually, the lights came back on.

Goodyear went on to lead the most laps of the race. I was going nuts. I just knew he was finally going to win. But suddenly he started dropping back! Arggh. And to make matters worse, Tony Stewart, who had started last, had worked his way up toward the front and actually passed Goodyear. I was in agony.

The race did not have many yellow flags. There were some incidents, but they occurred at the inside of the track on the opposite side of the track than where I was. Consequently, I couldn't see much. Billy Boat screwed up late into the race and cut in on Marco Greco which caused a accident knocking them and Unser and someone else out of the race.

Scott Goodyear made another stop and got some good tires back on his car and was then able to move up ahead of Stewart and finish in 4th place - not what he deserved, but better than 5th. AJ's other driver, Kenny Brack ended up winning - his 3rd IRL win in a row - a new record. It was nice seeing A.J. Foyt's POWER TEAM kicking whining Tony Stewarts (Menard) ass!

This race was plenty of fun and I'd love to go back next year.