This entry, the fourth in a series, was submitted by AAA’s Christie Hyde who accompanied the winners on their job-shadowing trip. Read all posts here.

The fourth day of our trip took a slightly slower pace and allowed us to catch our breath a bit before busy race weekend. In the morning, we drove slightly further north to Mooresville, North Carolina. Nicknamed ‘Race City USA,’ Mooresville is home to the NASCAR Technical Institute—a partnership school between Universal Technical Institute (UTI)  and NASCAR. As a sponsor of Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills, UTI awarded the 2009 national champions with full scholarships to one of their 19 technical centers across the country, including the NASCAR Technical Institute. As rising seniors, Justin and Matt were interested in visiting the school to learn more about the programs it offers as they weigh their options for after high school graduation. We toured the facility, dropped in on several classes and chatted with instructors—some of whom had served as judges for Auto Skills in years past. For lunch, we ate at Quaker Steak & Lube — a automotive-themed restaurant know for their wings and extended variety of sauces. Within minutes of sitting down to order, Justin and Matt were saying this was the ‘coolest’ place we’d eaten at so far because of the array of automotive and motorsports memorabilia that surrounded us.  We ate under a repair lift with a Ford right over head. Next we took our final trip to Roush Fenway Racing—this time to play the role of tourists instead of team members.  We toured the team’s museum which features numerous race cars from historic Roush Fenway Racing wins and championships through the years.  Now, it was time for us to bid North Carolina farewell as we headed to Charlotte Douglas Airport to catch a plane to Pennsylvania for Sunday's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. But this time, we did not go to the commercial portion of the airport. Instead, we traveled to the backside of the airport to a private terminal where Roush Air houses its planes. We were joined by crew members of all the Roush Fenway Racing and Yates Racing Sprint Cup teams as we lifted our own luggage into the belly of the plane, went through a brief security screening on the tarmac and climbed aboard through a set of stairs in the tail of the plane. 

The flight to Allentown, Pennsylvania took just over an hour and we had a 2009 Ford Flex waiting for us at the private terminal upon arrival that Hertz had delivered for us. We plugged our destination into AAA Mobile Navigator and began our trek north into the Pocono Mountains. Less than an hour later, after winding through mountain roads andpassing several ski slopes closed for the summer, we arrived at our hotel for the weekend—The  Three Diamond Chateau Resort and Conference Center in Tannersville. 

After dropping our bags in our rooms, we headed back down the mountain just slightly to a restaurant AAA Mobile Navigator had pointed us to — Barley Creek Brewing Company. Many of us dined on delicious steaks while Matt tried the German Sampler, featuring bratwurst, kielbasa and knockwurst.

Following dinner we headed back to The Chateau Resort to call it a night as we knew tomorrow’s day at the racetrack would start very early.