My First Trip To Indy

You see, I don't care who you are, if you don't become a race fan after watching the INDY 500 live you might not have a pulse!

I mean the sheer power of the cars and the skills of the drivers is AMAZING!

The hair on my arms actually stood up when the drivers started their engines...

You can actually feel the power of the engines travel through your body like a jolt of lighting when started.

I was lucky enough to have seats right at the starting line so I had a clear view of pit row and the flag man. He worked those flags like a conductor and his orchestra!

(View from our seats as Kristi Yamaguchi gets set to start the race!)

I’d also like to commend the lady drivers.

I mean come on, we’ve all heard the jokes about woman drivers. But it was very impressive the way those ladies handled themselves and their car traveling over 200 miles an hour and staying with the boys most of the day.

So anyway there were a ton of people at the race. I’ve heard estimates in the neighborhood of 350,000 people attended the event. This is a huge amount of people especially in a pretty small town.

(A few of our Tailgating neighbors)

So we got to our parking area and we had a great time tailgating as you can see! There were tons of grills fired up for the event ( using lighter fluid to my dismay) but the smoke was flowing just the same.

(More barbecuing and tailgating at the Indy 500!)

I was able to set up our tailgate area and proudly Fly the BBQFreaks.com Banner!

The great thing about my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker is the way it breaks down and its very easy to transport!

You might want to keep this in mind next time you’re in the market for a new smoker or if you’re purchasing your first cooker.

(Here’s the BBQ Freak looking awfully dorky pointing at his new Banner)

So anyway we fired up the smoker around 10 AM using a mixture of Humphrey’s hardwood lump charcoal and a chunk of cherry wood. I got the temp up to about 275 ( I was shooting for 300 but we were running out of time).

On the menu was a bunch of Atomic Buffalo Turds. We used some of the pulled pork from the previous day’s cook and the girls assembled them right there at our tailgate.

Believe it or not– the BBQ Freak forgot his rub for the turds so we had to wing it. I just went naked on the turds and we skipped the rub. I usually use a sweeter rub for my turds because it balances out the spice nicely.

After taking a few lessons from Billy Bones I figured the smoke would be good enough to flavor those little guys and boy was I right!

( My Girlfriend’s brother-in-law, Jason Williams carefully place some turds on the smoker!)

While the turds were smoking we walked around and took some other shots of other tailgaters…

(Some tailgaters with their Corn Hole game…what the heck is Corn Hole anyway?)

So by 11:30 the Turds were done and man they were good. The bacon wrapping the jalapeno was extra crispy and the smokiness of jalapenos with the Colby jack cheese just melted in your mouth.

(Our beautifully smoked Atomic Buffalo Turds)

So after we scarfed down the turds we packed up our coolers and an our tailgate and headed into the race. We had great weather and a great day and great Que.

I hope you and your friends and family have a chance to get together real soon and experience a similar time. If you can’t think of anything thats coming up–makes something up. I’m sure you can always find a good excuse for a party!

Now go smoke something, Bill Parlaman

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