For Dad’s Father’s Day gift this year—very belated—the Glanzer men met in Kansas City for a raucous weekend of NASCAR, baseball, BBQ and barhopping. Mom came up with the idea, hoping to help Dad check seeing a NASCAR race off his bucket-list. Alex and I put our heads together and debated several options, but ultimately landed on KC over Bristol due to its convenient location and easier travel logistics. With Mom springing for a rental house and the race tickets, you didn’t have to twist my arm too hard to join in.
On Friday evening I flew in, cashing in Delta miles for a free flight. Dad and Alex spent the day driving down from South Dakota. All day I regretted not taking the morning flight and getting in early, but thankfully travel was smooth and we met for dinner at Conroy’s Public House. We checked out the rental house in the Westport area, conveniently located halfway between the race track and the Royals’ stadium. The house was just a block or two from the Kansas/Missouri border on the Kansas side. Friends from KC warned me that that wasn’t a great area, but we found no issues with it! In fact, we walked from the house over to several neighborhood pubs including Twin City Tavern, which meant crossing state lines on foot. I was the only one who found that novelty particularly amusing.
Saturday we tried to check out the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame, but little did we know it was induction day! The museum was packed with families of the inductees getting a long-winded private tour from the museum president. We were trapped in the museum, literally unable to move! We abandoned the museum tour and ate Joe’s BBQ at the advice of old bud Charlie, a longtime KC resident full of local recommendations. We retired to the house to catch the Texas-Tennessee game before pregaming for the Royals-Guardians game at our favorite local bar, Twin City. We Ubered over to the ballpark on a rainy evening and had a fun time at the game on fan appreciation night. That was the first time Dad, Alex and I had been at an MLB game together since our family trip to KC in 1994! After baseball we had a nightcap and dinner at Harry’s Bar and Tables.
Sunday was the day of the big race. We headed out to for some breakfast near the track, then hoofed it through the ditch over to the track around 10:00 for the 2:00 start time. We figured there would be plenty to entertain us for 4 hours, but after an hour in the fan zone, we entered the track and realized there was little else to do unless we had a pre-race field pass, which we didn’t. So we sat in the stands drinking light beers until race time. I had been to an F1 race before but never NASCAR. It wasn’t as loud as F1 but ear plugs were still a requirement. Kyle Larson led pretty much wire-to-wire and won the 267-lap race. It was entertaining. I followed the action pretty well. I put $1 on Brad Keselowski with 93-1 odds… he got 12th. That night we ate Mexican at Ponak’s, another Charlie recommendation, and I was out cold around 9.
All in all, a great weekend! Perhaps we will have to do it again someday.
