Tiger Run GNCC 2022 -March

It is officially SPRING!! BUT NO spring-like weather in the forecast! 🙃 More temps in 30s-40s .. maybe low 50s this weekend.. Oh yea.. and the wind we been having.. looks like it is sticking around too! I just want it to be 80s, HOT, and SWEATY pleeeaaassseee!! 😩

Last weekend of March here.. and we are heading out to round 4 of the 2022 GNCC the Tiger Run, back to Big Buck property in Enroee, South Carolina!

FRIDAY

The weekend is not looking like great camping kind of weekend..cold temps (30s at night) and wind .. BUT looking like perfect track conditions and sunshine on race morning.. soo…. we are leaving the camper at home and have the trailer loaded, southbound we are!

Pick the boys up after school and we are on the road for a 6.5 hour drive to our hotel tonight!! Hayden won’t get a chance to check out the track, but he is ok with that.. he is ready!! We can’t miss too much school so we have to make due.

1010pm we make it to the hotel, check-in, and bedtime it is!!! Morning will come fast!! …

oh wait.. the kids are starving!! What we haven’t had super yet.. when we stopped for fuel, we should of gotten super. What did they pick.. yep, snacks, they weren’t hungry!?

Well if we are telling the truth.. we are all hungry right now.. out to the mini mart I go to grab a microwave philly steak.. and David goes to the truck to grab our food bag!

I have learned a lot along the way… always, always, have some sort of microwavable food for these boys! Easy Mac saved the day!!

GOODNIGHT 💤

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SATURDAY

Good Morning!! It is race day! A little cold outside, but the sun is shining!! ☀️

We are back to having hotel breakfast..and that is 5 star..compared to our microwave super at 10:30pm last night! 😂

hotel coffee… usually I can fix if up..umm… I tried but today it’s just not good… I’ll find something later! It’s time to head to the track!

We are staying in the same area of Spartanburg as we did for Big Buck.. about a 25-30 minute drive to the track!

Trying to tell myself the sun is going to warm it up… it is blinding this morning!

We arrive at the track at 8am .. race time 9:30am. We pull right into the field after coming through the gate so we can get in and back out easily. We don’t want blocked in because this mom has plans after racing today!! 🤗

I’ll take my mucks please! …

umm.. I don’t see them in the bed.. I must of forgot to throw them in…

What!? I ask you to make sure all the boots went when you were loading the truck.. you said, “I got them!?“

Looks like I’m off to the start in the only pair of shoes I have this trip…. hopefully it’s not muddy as usual here.. the worst colors to have at the track! .. David says he’ll buy me a new pair to wear the rest of the weekend if they get muddy.. .. ok..where is the biggest mud puddle!? 🤣 No not really, I don’t want to spend time shopping for shoes today!

It looks pretty dry today thankfully. However, my feet might be a little cold with no socks/boots… maybe I should put my tall socks on with these dudes!? ..Nah, I survived Georgia.. I’ll survive again! That wind though …. So done with the WIND this spring! 🥶

These two are over the cold wind too ..Thankfully, David ordered parts and fixed my life saver for the other 2 at the track!! $30 so worth it!! and we are good to go.. our cozy ride!! AND I don’t have to feel guilty hauling them around on bikes in the wind!! 🤗 I know they don’t look real excited ..

Hayden is prepared for the wind!!

Hayden is off to the start.. in line to line up..

and then they line up…National Anthem…Say the prayer “keep them safe and let them have fun”… and …

Teeeeeeennnnnn Seconds!!

The 125 ATV (8-12) is off!

Took off 2nd around turn 1 by a tire! and into the woods 2nd or 3rd I can barely see from the dust!

Here we go towards the finish to wait and watch.. David is heading out on his bike to chase Hayden around.. we know how he gets into the trees here!

almost 17 minutes and he checks in 6th for lap 1! Alright!! I feel better now that he’s been around 1 lap..

2 laps down! .. Checks in 9th.. praying he can hold that or better yet get around more! He seems to having a good time out there!

We have no pics or videos of this race.. we were so busy going back and forth to see him coming through at the finish and behind the finish that we neglected the phones..there’s no service to check the live scoring so we check scoring at the finish.

Thankfully, Stacy Mundy caught a few!

There I am in the background with my blue phone in front of my face videoing 🤣🤪

Turn 1!

White flag is out as he checks in for lap 3 .. checks in 8th! … one more lap.. the one that seems like forever every race!

Wow, all nice clean laps (not perfectly clean, there was a bottleneck on lap 2 took him from 6th going to 9th) BUT no tree hold ups or major minute losses, that’s our goal for now! Coming in with an 8th place finish out of 21! and 61 out of 142 overall!

IMPROVING his position every race!

Really bad at pictures this race .. missed the smile and caught the water please!

Hayden says the track was fun and he was had a great time out there!

Results from GNCC Racing

We head back to the trailer .. Hayden was ready for the mini chocolate donuts….

ummm… someone else found them first!! 🤣.. ya don’t leave food laying around if this girl is anywhere near 🤣

Shortly after we load up the ATV and get Hayden out of his race gear, we are all loaded and ready to roll on…

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The sun is nice but the wind is still furocious so we aren’t hanging around at the track today!! …

Where are we going!? …Back to the Smoky Mountains!! Stay tuned to find out why.. really exciting news!!

First stop!? …We have heard from many that Maggie Valley, North Carolina is a unique little mountain town. We have a few hours to check it out, let’s go explore! It is only a 2 hour drive from the track!

MAGGIE VALLEY

We are looking for .. coffee (me), ice cream (David & Luke), candy store (Hayden), and Lynlee is the smart one.. she takes some from everyone!! .. little bit of everything!

We find a plaza of shops here with a large lot to park our truck and trailer. …

Yea, you guessed it.. temps are getting colder … wind is still full bore with so much chill its like razor blades..

The plaza has a Sippers in the Valley coffee shop, Maggie Valley Ice cream, and candy shop all together here!! Perfect!

Coffee is first on the list of coarse.. Sippers in the Valley is a unique little place! The staff offered us their balcony area that has a few games in it for the kids while we warm up and I enjoy my delicious coffee!

and then we are off for ice cream and candy..

and this is the product of Hayden going to the candy store .. there’s only 5 or 6 different things in that bag..

We strolled through a few of the unique shops here.. I enjoyed just strolling around seeing the artistic pieces .. One of my favorites is Mountain Made!

We were planning on checking out Soco Falls this afternoon. You drive through Maggie Valley and there is parking along the road. Take a short walking trail to the falls. It looks beautiful BUT we are so cold we have decided to skip out and make that part of our plans later in the year!

Load back up in the truck and we are off for a 50 minute drive to the Holiday Inn Express we booked in Newport, TN for the night! We looked for a place with an indoor pool knowing the weather wasn’t great and we would be in early for the evening! We are thinking we’ll be doing door dash for dinner!

4:55pm And we made it… the boys are ready to swim!! Let’s get checked in!

David is checking in… I see all these windows on the left side covered!? Is that the pool? I walk around the corner to see the pool is closed for construction! 😩 Oh noway am I sitting in a hotel room with 3 kids and NO pool all evening 😳..the lady was super nice and completely understood! She refunded us our money for our room and tried to find us a room in areas we were planning to go.

When we came to the mountains after Big Buck we stayed in a nice cheaper hotel in Kodak.. we had looked it up but it is 2x’s the $$ this weekend than 5 weeks ago 😒

Well that was the only place we found with availability and an indoor pool without paying $300+ for 1 night so we load back up… and off to Kodak, TN!

33 minutes further … here we go!

5:43PM We made it!! Not much time wasted!!

David sends Hayden to get a luggage cart… this kid .. here he comes running with it so I start to video because I can see this isn’t going to make it across the parking lot!

and I barely caught it… 🤣🤣🤣…

We check in and straight to swim clothes!

Sitting poolside I’m getting dinner together..try to order door dash… nothing in the area.. try to order delivery… nothing .. I search and find grub hub!? Never used it but worth a try.. Maybe this will work! If we didn’t have the trailer we would of ordered and drove to pick it up.. but ordering is so much easier with the traffic here.

Gondolier Italian Restaurant & Pizza is open and delivering! Yay!! We’ve never heard of it.. 4.2⭐️ on google so we’ll try it! We order and plan to swim another hour while we wait. It is on Dolly Parton Parkway so a few miles from here!

Meanwhile…. the boys are enjoying their swim-time..

8:30PM dinner has arrived.. back to the room to get into dry clothes and we are so ready to for food!!

The pizza was really good!! I was surprised thinking it wouldn’t be great as seeing it had to be made then delivered 20 minutes down the road! Much better option than taking these 3 kiddos out after riding in the truck most of the afternoon!

Time for showers and a good nights rest!!

GOODNIGHT! 💤

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SUNDAY

Good Morning!! Sun is shining bright.. still a little windy and temps are in the 30s 🥶

And as we are loading our luggage to head out…

Well… what happened to the license plate!? Stolen, fell of!? We dunno!? … So we report it and they are sending us a new one.

If you have been following our travel adventures for 2022, you know we were in the mountains for New Years, back again in February for a day, and now here we are again 4 weeks later! During these visits we have property searched and purchased an 1.5 acre lot! I have shared all of this in a Bettinger’s Alpine Escape Blog as well! It will be attached at the bottom of this blog if you want to follow along!!

We closed on our property March 14 and have a project manager to meet with today to discuss details!! Yay!! We can’t believe we are here and ready to move forward with this dream!

After our meeting we are on the road to home!! We only have 1 weekend off and we will be heading out for round 5 of the 2022 GNCC!! Stay tuned!! and let’s pray for less wind, warmer temps, and a good safe race!

Thanks for Reading!!❤️

Disclaimer: My full throttle blogs are for entertainment purposes only. These are my families stories to share for fun, and our opinions only. I am not giving professional advise or recommendations. Thank you for reading!