The 2008 Budweiser Shootout will go down in history for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. winning his first race for Hendrick Motorsports and for being by far the best race that I have ever seen in person. I knew when I woke up Friday morning that something big was going to happen in Daytona. I had the same feeling a few days before Tony Stewart won the 2006 Pepsi 400 in Daytona. Since I had that feeling and saw the results… I knew to follow my intuition.

The pre-race stuff was pretty cool. We spent the majority of the ARCA race in the Fan Zone above the garages. I was stalking out Tony’s motor coach and saw Eddie (his manager) and Sumo (his friend) go in and out along with Zippy. Other than that, I saw Ryan Newman’s crew carrying Domino’s in a little wheel barrow type thing (I don’t know what to call it). I also saw Marty Smith running his mouth on his cell phone. I saw Jack Rousch, walking around and waving at fans on the deck.

Then it was time to head to pit road and get ready for the pre-race ceremonies. Martin and Tony came out side by side and I was too busy taking group shots of them to notice that Ryan Newman was walking off the stage and damn, there’s Dale, Jr. right in front of me. People booed Jeff and Jimmie, Kyle and Tony, and of course, Kurt Busch.

The race was.. well everybody saw the race. In person, it was better, trust me. I’ve never heard people roar so load for Junior when he took the lead, especially that last time before taking the checkered flag. It was surreal… very surreal.

The next morning we woke up and headed back to the track for some activities. Ryan Newman was singing autographs and at noon, Junior would be doing a Q&A at the Chevy stage. We waited and had a front row seat for that and it was pretty damn awesome. You can see it by checking out Ricky Rackman’s interview with Dale, Jr. over at NASCAR.com.

The one thing that stood out the most about he weekend was the amount of fans wearing new merchandise and as you can guess, it was #88 Dale, Jr. merchandise. Once in a while you saw a red #8, but it was mostly #88. Just… amazing.

The trip was amazing and I’m still paying for it (physically). I’m still tired from the trip.

The photos can be found on flickr and please do not use without my permission. I would hate to start tagging all my pictures with an ugly tag in the middle of the photo.