In the Field: Elliott Sadler

Racing in Charlotte is always an exciting week because Lowe's Motor Speedway is in everybody's back yard and it feels like a home track race to everyone in the business.

And being around Charlotte leading up to the Coke 600 is always a fun week for drivers, teams and owners because of all the fans that stay over, after the all-star race and make a week out of it, touring around to all the racing facilities in the area.

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For us at Evernham Motorsports, we're having a fan day starting on Friday morning, when there's no activity at the racetrack the day after pole qualifying.

We try to get the fans involved by us drivers being there to sign some autographs, we've got some racing simulators set up and a lot of tours and activities and games planned to get the kids involved.

That's pretty cool to be involved with that, since it's going to be my first Evernham Motorsports Fan Day. I'm definitely looking forward to it, and the fans should, too, because they can tour through about 90 percent of the shop.

Part of the thing that's neat about the whole deal is, there will still be work going on at the shop while Fan Day is going on, because there's a lot to be done.

But that's cool because some fans want to see that, to see what goes into working on these cars and building them and whatever it is the team does away from the racetrack.

This is the one day a year that Ray opens up the shop for everyone to come and take a look, so I hope a lot of people take advantage of that.

It's an odd schedule that Lowe's Motor Speedway brings us, but we don't mind having that off-day at the track, because we're all at home.

We don't want to go to other tracks and kind of waste a day, away from home, but it's pretty cool to go in there and get qualified, know that you're in the race and then have Friday off to spend with your family, which is pretty neat.

Or in our case at Evernham's, to spend time with some of our fans.

Even though we're driving at the highest level of the sport, that doesn't mean we're not fans, too -- and that really came home for me earlier this week when we tested our Avenger Car of Tomorrow at Rockingham.

Bill Elliott was there testing a car for the Wood Brothers, who as you know I formerly drove for. So that was a pretty special day.

I think it's amazing to have Bill around again. It's great for the sport. And to have him driving for Eddie and Len Wood is just greater yet.

As drivers and just people in the garage, we all know what the Wood Brothers mean to this sport, and what kind of people they are. They'll always do anything they can to help anybody in the garage.

It's not always about what they need or what they want.

So I think Bill Elliott has been offered other opportunities to come and work for teams, because he had champion's provisional starting spots available. For whatever reasons, he didn't want to do it before this. (Continued)