#dempseyracing

It is Road America weekend people!  I am so very pumped to be spending the weekend at the TUDOR Championship watching some great IMSA racing. So I have talked before about my passion/interest for auto racing… yes it came directly from my dad. And no, I don’t plan to outgrow it. So yes, you will continue to get updates on racing things, but I promise not too many and don’t worry, NASCAR isn’t my thing.

Anyway, my mom, sisters and I set out for a weekend in Elkhart Lake, WI to watch some fabulous and very, very pretty sports cars race a beautiful 4-mile track. (No they don’t ride in circles – not that kinda racing.) The plan was to explore the track a bit, watch some qualifying, do a little driver stalking (Did I mention a lot of the drivers are pretty good looking (HOT) and young? I didn’t? Weird. Did I mention one of the drivers is Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey? No, huh? Weird again.) and then head to the hotel where we could change and head to dinner at the area’s best little restaurant the Paddock Club.

The weather was beautiful, we cover a lot of the 4 mile track and got to spend time sitting in one of my dad’s favorite spots to watch the qualifying rounds. We walked through the pit area, got up-close-and-personal with the racing teams and BEAUTIFUL cars and yes, we even did a little Dempsey stalking. Angie and I were watching him do a fan meet-and-greet after buying everything at the Dempsey Racing Store and later we found ourselves in a photo bomb of sorts with the Dempsey Racing marketing director. Check out the official @GoDempseyRacing tweet below… do you see us off to the right on the very end? Total stalkers.

So after a very nice day at the track we had to get a move on to get ready for dinner at one of my favorite Wisconsin restaurants. The Paddock Club is a cute and unpretentious little restaurant in downtown Elkhart Lake with exceptional food and pretty delicious drinks. In March when we finally decided we would be doing race weekend for the entire weekend and not just race day, Angie made a reservation knowing that there aren’t many places in town and this is just delicious. So we made our way and were greeted by the hostesses who asked if we were friends of the chef. We laughed and said no, but we would certainly like to be as she is amazing! They gave us a weird look and then directed us to our table, the same table we sat at a few years earlier on my birthday – it is a great round table nestled in the main dining’s bay window.  It is a great table for people watching and at the time little did we know how much people watching we would be doing. As we sat down and discussed drinks (basically the conversation went like this – Are you having a drink or wine? Both? Ok, good.), I caught a familiar figure out of the corner of my eye walking down the street toward the restaurant – the Dempsey Racing marketing director (So, I am nerd and maybe a small stalker. Why do I know who their marketing director is you are asking yourself? Well, the team participated in a 5-part mini-series on Velocity (yep, I sure do watch that channel) called Patrick Dempsey: Racing Le Mans. She was featured in the documentary so I remembered her from that). So I signaled to Angie who knew exactly who I was looking at (we have telepathic thing, we did the same signal with no verbal communication when we realized we were eating dinner next to Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong) and she immediately said, holy crap, she's coming into the restaurant. We all looked at each other and then shook our heads and thought better of what our imaginations had instantly plotted at about the same time we watched her walk out of the restaurant. So much for that, or so we thought. A few minutes later, with drinks in hand, I again looked out the window to see her standing down the street waving to someone out of view. I gave the update to the table and as I turned to look back to the street suddenly there she was walking up the sidewalk with Dempsey Racing partner Joe Foster, to which I again signaled to Angie and believe I hissed "OMG, she’s with Joe." Then knew exactly what was about to happen and who was bringing up the rear. As soon as I said it, Angie hissed “and there’s Patrick and here they come.” Before we could entirely process what was happening, the three of them were seated at a table near us. And suddenly the hostesses were back begging each table in the dining room not to approach McDreamy. At one point we needed to take mom’s phone away because she was becoming embarrassing and not at all subtle and this is a VERY small dining room. But before we apprehended her phone she caught this picture:

Needless to say, it was a very enjoyable dinner and now I can say I basically “dined with Patrick Dempsey.” The funniest part was that I was actually way more excited to see/meet Joe Foster. Joe has been a long-time driver and I very much respect his career and what he is currently doing – and he just seems like the nicest guy ever. (BTW, Patrick is basically the nicest, most down-to-earth guy. He got stopped on the street leaving dinner and stood there and took individual pictures with each of the 50 ladies waiting outside for him.) Anyway, I really, really wanted to meet Joe and approach the table and ask for a photo with him. I thought it would have been funny, but also very genuine. For our first real visit to the track since my dad has been gone, I would certainly say he was watching over us to make sure we had a great time and went back. It was a day full of things to be grateful for.

Below are some photos of the cars (the real reason you go!) before qualifying.