Unprofessional, regular, family-style coverage of the racing at Kansas Speedway

In case you didn't know, Greg Biffle won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway. But Biffle wasn't the only winner in Kansas City, Kan.

Beautiful weather meant that everyone who went to the races was a winner, too. And my family and I were among the hordes of fans that spent some time watching the sensible consumption of high-octane fuel this weekend.

Overall, we had an incredible busy weekend, so getting to Kansas Speedway wasn't really in the cards. But as luck would have it, BHo's school was closed on Friday, so we were able to take in a day of practice and qualifying at Kansas City's racing showplace.

The first thing we saw before we even got through the gates was some kind of presentation in a Chevy Trucks display that featured none other than Ryan Newman. BHo walked right up to the Stewart-Haas driver--and stared at him. Newman said something like, "how's it going?" And BHo continued to stare. After a few awkward seconds, Newman closed with, "I like your shirt, buddy!" The he got in his golf cart and left. It was the stuff dreams are made of.

We also purchased some fan walk tickets and walked down in the restricted area of the pits. I've been down there with media credentials before, and I would have had a lot more access that way. But being there with my wife and son was way more fun. Drivers don't exactly seem to walk over and sign autographs there or anything, but you really get to see the cars up close. That's where most of the car pictures in the slideshow came from.

Then we went back upstairs and watched the cars practice. It was pretty cool for BHo so see the real cars that we watch every week on TV for the first time. I know he enjoyed it, and I loved taking him there. After awhile, we went down and looked at all the souvenir trailers and sponsor displays. BHo left with four or five new die cast cars, and we really had a great time checking it all out. You can see why people enjoy going to these events, because in spite of the fact that we must have walked a thousand miles, it was really a neat way to spend the day.

But we weren't done with racing--oh, no. The MLRA Late Models were running at Lakeside Speedway down the road, and I'm an absolute freak for Late Models. Lakeside is a great track to watch them on, too. We met my dad there, and everyone got really dirty and tired that night. But we saw the best racing of the weekend out there.

There are nice photos of the races at Kansas Speedway all over the Internet right now, and darned near every single one of them is better than what's in the slideshow. These are the pictures from a fan's perspective. This is what we saw--a mom, a dad, and a six-year-old boy. I actually hope you kind of like them for their crudeness.