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

We awoke the day before the scheduled race to sunny skies and pleasant temperatures in Pocono Mountains. We traveled to the racetrack for a shortened day in the garage. The 2009 Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills national champs quickly went to work assisting the DeWALT team in preparing the No. 17 Ford Fusion for back-to-back practice sessions. During practice, the team seemed to struggle with finding the right set-up as Matt Kenseth’s lap times were off the pace.

Team owner Jack Roush made an appearance in the DeWALT garage, carefully inspecting some of the car parts for any potential flaws. Following practice, the Matt and Justin helped the team as they prepped the car for the next day’s race and several reporters stopped by to chat with them, including ones from the Bleacher Report and Sirius XM NASCAR channel. Check out the Bleacher Report article.

The garage closed at 2:30 p.m., making it a much shorter day for everyone. With the free time, the DeWALT team decided to grab an early dinner and go to Borgers Speedway to watch some good ole dirt track racing. By now, the team had come to accept Matt, Justin and Mark as one of their own and asked the guys to join them. After hitting Five Guys for burgers and fries for dinner, they headed out to the track where they watched from the pits—and got covered in dirt—during a series of races that lasted until late into the evening. The rain pelting against the windows of the hotel was not a good omen when we awoke on race day. We loaded up our Hertz rental and headed to Pocono Speedway. As we exited off of Interstate 80 we found that the steady rain was not a deterrent for race fans, who already had traffic backed up heading into the track. As we walked into the garage, we had to trudge through a four-inch deep river of water that flowed across the entrance. Nothing’s more fun that starting the day with your feet already soaked. In the garage area, the team had set up tires across the growing river of water that ran between garage stalls and the race haulers that we used like stepping stones. The DeWALT team was making final tweaks to the race car prior to taking it through final NASCAR inspection before the race. As the rain continued to fall, crew chief Drew Blickensderfer made an early prediction that the race would be postponed until Monday. He noted that safer barrier retains water and this particular racetrack is known for ‘weeping,’ which means water soaked into ground beneath the track will seep back up through cracks due to the pressure of vehicles running over the asphalt.

While we hid under a tent by the hauler, a reporter with NASCAR.com came by to interview the 2009 Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills champs about their experience this week. Just as the interviewed wrapped up, we joined Drew Blickensderfer and Matt Kenseth as they attended NASCAR’s mandatory pre-race driver/crew chief pre-race meeting. While sitting with Drew and Matt, the guys got to rub elbows with every driver and crew chief in the field during the meeting, while dignitaries for the race were introduced and key rules were reviewed.

During the meeting, the rain finally seemed to stop, and we could hear the jet dryers firing up to begin the tough task of drying the 2.5-mile triangle-shaped track.

After the meeting concluded, we headed back to the race hauler and were just finishing up lunch with legendary team owner Jack Roush came by to meet Justin, Matt and Mark. He asked them what was the trickiest ‘bug’ they encountered during National Finals and shared how he once taught automotive technology class before his career in auto racing took off.

Following their meeting with Jack, we walked around to the front stretch and pits to watch driver introductions up close and Justin was able to meet and get autographs from some of the drivers he’d hadn’t had a chance to meet yet.

Normally, drivers would go to their race cars on the starting grid after driver introductions and get ready to climb in for the race. But with the racetrack still wet, this time the drivers returned to their haulers and motor coaches to wait and see if the jet dryers would work. The traffic officials did all they could try to dry the racetrack, including having workers with powerful leaf blowers trying to dry the ‘weeping’ cracks in the track.

Would had started to circulate amongst the teams that they wanted the drivers to report out to their cars on the grid at 3:30 p.m. Officials thought they might be able to get the track dry enough to start the race. But just minutes before that, the sky opened up again. It started as a mist and continued to slowly grow heavier. Finally, it became evident the race wasn’t going to happen today. Even if they were able to get the track dry, it would be a race against the sunset as Pocono Raceway does not have lights. And, NASCAR rules state that at least half the scheduled laps must be run – 100 laps in this case — in order for the race results to count.

Officials made the announcement that the race would be postponed until noon on Monday, and we discussed whether to change our flight plans to stay an extra day. After talking it over, Justin, Matt and Mark decided they wanted to head home as planned. They already had commitments to work and family vacations for the next week that they didn’t want to change. So we traveled down to Allentown and spent the night at the Courtyard by Marriott near the airports so we could catch our early morning flights and head back to the ‘real world’ after our dream week as a member of the Roush Fenway Racing DeWALT team.