Sunday, June 19, 2011

Carp Festival and Nascar, Michigan Center, MI

When we found out how close we were to the next Nascar race, we decided to head north just in time for Sunday's race. Michigan Center is only about 15 miles from the race track so that is where we stayed. Down the street was a carnival, so we walked down to check it out.
My question was "What do they do with carp?" Where I'm from they might catch them, but most people throw them back as they are not considered the best eating fish.

 
The contest is for the largest carp caught. This was a pretty big carp, I'd say.

The contest is for 4 days, so they just leave the carp laying out until the festival is over. Yuck!

But the park where the festival is held is on a small lake. Lots of people bring their boats to the festival instead of driving their cars.

They had bands playing throughout the festival. Some were good and some weren't so good.

On our way back I spotted this unusual looking building and had to take a closer look. It's not really built as a castle, just remodeled and painted to make it look that way. It is now a tattoo parlour.

But our real reason for being in the area was the Nascar Sprint Race on Sunday.

I even got my visor signed by Joey Logano, one of the youngest Nascar racers, he is only 20 and this is his 2nd year of racing.

And they had this Monster truck too.

And a little miniature race car as well.

But all that was outside the racetrack. We got there early to get tickets and our race scanners, so we had lots of time to wander and participate in all the vendor activities. Now it's race time.

It's almost time. The cars are lined up waiting for those famous words, "Start your engines".

We had great seats on the 4th turn. We were high enough to see all the turns, and

had a great view down to the pits.

The infield was full of campers.

Many had platforms built on top of their motor homes or buses. It does look like they are all having a good time.

Denny Hamlin won the race and is doing the traditional donuts in front of the grandstand.

We caught this sight on the way home.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surely you can find a better tourist attraction in Michigan than noisy smelly cars driving in circles! (I live 50 miles from there and wouldn't go if you paid me.) Did you check out the Irish Hills? How about Hidden Lake Gardens? On the other hand, I used to go carp fishing with my stepdad in Lake Adrian, and they fight like the dickens!

marc said...

she found the best attraction in michigan !!!! the carp fest. 2012 will be my 48th year of going to it. it just keeps on geting biger and better...i have a sweet video clip of my 11 yearold girl dancing with the carp...also my boat is in one of the pics.you posted

ladynomad said...

It sure looked like those on the boats were having fun.