5/2: NASCAR Hall of Fame, Speedway Club, & Race Shops
On last year’s road trip we wanted to go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame but didn’t realize it was closed on Tuesdays, the only day we had available. This year I made sure to fit it in the schedule.
We arrived as soon as they opened and headed to the main auditorium for the introductory movie. There was a countdown clock indicating the minutes until the show. When the countdown reached 0, an employee announced the movie would be delayed as they were waiting for a school group to arrive. There were about 10 of us waiting for the movie. Soon a couple hundred middle school students processed in and the theater was completely full. The movie still didn’t start however as a teacher was making a presentation explaining what NASCAR and stock cars are. I looked at my husband and said, “Why don’t we come back later for the movie and go see some exhibits?” It was a good decision.
We had about 20 minutes of exploring the different displays before the wave of middle schoolers came through the museum. There were a bunch of very cool looking interactive exhibits but they were all consumed by the students. Honestly I think the ticket office should have let us know the museum was going to be packed with students. We would’ve come back at another time. The kids were all very well behaved but they just made it way too crowded to get to the exhibits. At $54 for tickets, we really weren’t able to get our monies’ worth.
After we left the museum we went to check out Joe Gibbs’ racing. Unfortunately they were unexpectedly closed for the day. Since it was time for lunch, we knew exactly where we wanted to eat: The Speedway Club at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Our server brought over the complimentary bread service of cheddar biscuits.
These were served warm and were delicious!
Last year we had tried the burger and chicken sandwich so this year we decided to try a couple entrees. We started with side salads, DH ordered Honey Mustard dressing and I had Blue Cheese.
The salads were simple but very fresh tasting.
DH ordered the Chicken and Waffles: Pearl sugar sweet mini waffles and battered chicken strips fried golden brown; served with maple syrup, fresh berries and powdered sugar
Being Northerners, chicken and waffles are a new phenomenon to us. My DH absolutely loved this. The chicken was perfectly seasoned and fried, the waffles were crisp, and the fruit & syrup gave the meal a great sweet contrast to the savory chicken. What a beautiful, tasty dish!
I ordered the Cajun Pasta with Shrimp: Linguini tossed in a Cajun cream sauce with tomatoes, parmesan and basil.
This was perfectly seasoned, with not too much heat. Just a phenomenal dish!
The food at the Speedway Club is just excellent and it’s cool to eat while overlooking the track. There is always something going on. On this day there was a road course Mustang Driving School driving around the track.
After our meal, we stopped by Hendrick’s Racing but their shop was also closed due to filming some sort of commercial. We hung around in the parking lot for a bit to see if we could catch a glimpse of one of the drivers filming the commercial but we had no luck.
We headed from Hendrick’s to Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing. There was a little museum type area to walk through but all the video displays were turned off. There were a couple displays of crashed cars but there was no access to see the shop floor. There was a receptionist at a desk that completely ignored us. So we walked around a little and headed out.
Other than our phenomenal meal, we weren’t very successful on our agenda so far: Hall of Fame crowded, Gibbs closed, Hendrick closed, RFK open but not much to see.
Our last NASCAR stop for the day was Trackhouse racing. The receptionist was super friendly and told us all about the drivers. She let us take a picture of Ross Chastain’s car that he drove during his infamous “Hail Melon” incident at Martinsville in October of 2022. If you don't know what that is google it, it's pretty impressive.
What a different experience at this shop! So welcoming and excited to talk to us about the Trackhouse team. What we didn’t realize until we left was that we had actually shown up fifteen minutes before they closed and yet the receptionist spent forty-five minutes talking to us and showing us around. We were very impressed with Trackhouse racing.
After our NASCAR day, we headed to Jetton Park to get our steps and enjoyed a light dinner of PB&J sandwiches, having had such a large lunch.
Total steps: 14,582
Up next: a free tour of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s shop, a hidden gem museum, and another great meal on our last full day in Charlotte
