5 Years Ago, where were you?

5 years ago this morning was a day I'll never foret. The terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC shocked America, where were you when you found out?

I was in Topeka Kansas for the SCCA Solo Nationals. I woke up around 8:30 am with the TV on I believe the Today Show. I saw replays of the first plan striking the towers and couldn't believe was I was seeing. I flipped channels to see what else I could find out, and sure enough, it was really happening. I spent most of the morning there in the hotel, watching TV. I was on the phone with my then girlfriend Jessica; she was in California, in shock as well. I was on the phone with my parents, my father was supposed to fly to Atlanta that day for work. I was on the phone with my buddy James "Tool" Nelson, who was also in Kansas at the Kansas Motor Speedway, working for DEI at the time and there with Dale Ernhardt Jr. testing. My original plans were to drive up to KMS and watch them test, get to meet JR, and just hang out.

Throughout the day the news didn't really get better, replays of the planes, video of the aftermath, watching the towers fall. After 4 hours or so I decided I had to do something else. I showered and got in my car to head up to see James. As I left the hotel parking lot I called him, they were packing up and hitting the road. Most of them had flown out to Kansas City, and had planned on flying back to NC. With the airports shutdown and all flights grounded they decided to pack up the trucks/cars/trailers and start making the drive back.

So intead of heading to KMS I headed down to Forbes Field to watch some of the Solo Nationals. I got down there and got to see a few people run that day, but before long word was spreading around the lot that we were all being kicked off of Forbes. For those of you who don't know, Forbes Field is an old military runway, that still gets used as a reserve field for a squadron of refueling tankers. We were told that due to the recent events, and the fact that we were on an active military installation we would have to leave. Solo Nationals was still held that year, it was just crammed into two days. Normally the event was 4 days, split into two groups, each group ran two days, on two different courses. In 2001 it was two groups, one day each on one course.

Later that day in Topeka I headed off to find some liquor for a party that was planned Tuesday night. I ended up going to a store attached to a gas station, seeing folks like up for gas out onto the streets. The panic was there would be no more gas, and prices showed that, prices double and sometimes tripled there in Topeka KS on 9/11/2001.

That day will always be a memory to me, watching the events unfold on television, thinking, how much is our world going to change. Is this the start of a war that will go on for years. In all honesty, the "war" that our country fights now is nothing like the war I imagined back then. I feared much worse, but am glad to know that the leaders of our country were able to respond with force and prevent similar events from occurring on our soils since.

I know soldiers who have fought in this current war on terror, and even some who had just recently left to go to the Middle East. To those soldiers, my friends, and those who are over in Iraq and elsewhere in the world supporting our soldiers, I thank you. Without your valiant efforts our country wouldn't be what it is today. I will always remember September 11th, 2001, and will always remember the way it has changed our world.

Do you remember where you were on 9/11?