Nelson and I landed in Las Vegas earlier today for the kickoff of the Fireball Run, which starts with track events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Friday morning. The entire day has been pretty much a whirlwind with a few ups and downs. Everything has worked out so far but not without a little brain power and getting somewhat creative with a few things.
Upon arriving and taking delivery of the Camaro I headed over to the airport to pick up Nelson. The plan was to go and purchase the two pound dry chemical fire extinguisher at a local race shop that Nelson called earlier in the week. The extinguisher is required for track use and we ran into problems trying to ship one. But once we got there, the race shop told us it had sold out of the extinguishers we needed this week. Not good. We hit two other places before finding one at NAPA at the last second.
Once back at the hotel we attended the welcoming mixer. There were appetizers, drinks and lots of nice people. We met some of the competition while we also mingled with some sponsors and local city council members. Towards the end of the mixer welcome speeches were made by Natalie Zimmerman (rally organizer), JJ Sanchez (creator and director of the Fireball Run), the chief safety officer and Valentino Balboni himself.
After all the festivities Nelson and I headed back out to the Camaro. We needed to install the Race-Keeper data logger and the fire extinguisher for the three track events tomorrow. Most Fireball Run contestants will be participating (we assume) in the track events. That includes Valentino Balboni in his Lamborghini. We are going into the track events confident but with reasonable expectations. Stay tuned for more Fireball Run updates as the rally unfolds.
