Traveling with Judy and the kids in my early days on the auto racing beat was often an adventure.

I was set to cover a NASCAR race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, TN when the kids were about seven and eight. They had been begging me for a chance to come to one of the races and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to make it happen.

The race was going to be televised live in Bristol, so Judy and I made a plan to get her and the kids to the track for the first half of the race. Since I had a reserved media parking spot on the road leading up the hill to the press box on the outside of the track, they could leave after the halfway point, avoid the post-race traffic and watch the end of the race from the comfort of our motel room.

I caught a ride to the track from one of the other writers and would do the same for the trip home after I was done writing.

As the start of the race neared, I was in the press box but keeping an eye out for the car, hoping Judy and the kids got to the track and into their grandstand seats in time for the start and without mishap.

Our car, a Pontiac station wagon with a Sears clam shell carrier on top, was easy to spot. And I'm sure I got a big smile on my face when I saw the car turn into the track entrance. But that smile turned to a worried frown and I began to mutter under my breath when I saw Judy pass the road to the outside media parking area and continue straight toward the infield.

As I muttered, "No, no. Don't do that," she drove the car over the track and into the infield, where she was directed to a parking space.

First, I wasn't sure she and the kids would know how to get to their seats on the outside of the track before the gates were closed and, second, I knew if the car remained in the infield, she and the kids would have to stay, not only until the end of the race, but for at least an hour afterward, until the track opened the gates again.

Judy later told me she kept asking people where the media parking was and they just kept waving her forward. When she went over the crest onto the banked track, she knew she was in the wrong place but didn't know how to fix the problem.

I'm not sure I have ever run that fast in my life, before or since. Fortunately, I had an extra key to the car in my wallet. Taking the chance that the family had crossed the track and found their seats, I raced to the car and moved it back across the track to my reserved parking spot, just in the nick of time.

Now, I had to find Judy to let her know I had moved the car. But I had no idea where their seats were located in that massive crowd.

What I didn't know was that Judy had spotted the car leaving the infield and said to the kids, "Either somebody's stealing our car or daddy is saving us."

She watched to see where I parked the car and the three of them walked to the parking area to find me. But I was already back in the press box, waiting for the race to start and worrying about how I was going to contact Judy.

My wife is very resourceful. She tried to get to the press box but was stopped because she didn't have the right credential. Nobody was willing to leave their post to come tell me she was trying to find me.

Finally, though, Judy knocked on the door of the radio booth. Longtime friend Eli Gold was on the broadcasting team that day. He had somebody watch Tory and Lanni for a few minutes and walked Judy to the press box, getting her inside the door so she could find me.

Problem solved. Back to the original plan.

By the time the race ended, the kids were in their beds at the motel, sound asleep and very happy they had gotten to see a race - and eat all kinds of concessions food they normally weren't allowed to eat.

We took the kids most everywhere we went, but there were a few times we got a baby sitter.

One time, we were in Florence, SC for a race at nearby Darlington. Judy and I were invited to an awards dinner at a local country club, not a place for the kids.

The lady who managed the motel had a 15-year-old daughter who did baby sitting. And the manager also noted she would be just down the hall if there were any problems.

The kids were in bed by the time we got home and paid the sitter, who simply said the kids had been "just fine."

Moments after she left, Tory got out of bed and, looking very serious, said, "I have something to tell you."

It turns out that, when it was bed time, the sitter told the kids to say their prayers and be sure to say they took Jesus Christ for their lord and savior."

Tory told her, "We don't do that. We're Jewish." The sitter replied, "Well, I hate to tell you, but that means you're going to Hell and you'll be damned for eternity."

Lanni, lying in her bed, began to cry. But Tory told us he put his arm around her and whispered in her ear, "Don't worry, Lanni. We're Jewish. That that doesn't apply to us."

Apparently that was enough for Lanni and the two of them went to bed without further ado. But Tory obviously waited up for us to make sure we not only heard the story but assured him that he was absolutely right in his assessment of the situation.

A really good big brother.

A few years later, we were in Daytona Beach for a July NASCAR race. We were staying at an oceanfront motel that had a very nice pool area.

There were quite a few other writers and pr people staying there, many of them with their families.

Lanni had become quite friendly with one of the girls around her age and they were hanging out together by the pool when a black family arrived.

Two black kids went into the pool just as Lanni took off her cover-up and headed toward the water. The other girl said, "You can't go in now. There's n.....'s in there."

Lanni later told us she smiled at the other girl and said, "Oh, we're northerners. We don't care."

With that, she dove into the pool and said hello to the other kids. The other girl shrugged and followed Lanni into the pool and nothing more was said.

We're real proud of those kids - and not just for those moments.

Of course, they were not always perfectly behaved. In fact, Tory, who was 11 at the time, nearly scared us to death one year in Miami, FL, where I was covering an IMSA sports car event.

We stopped by what was then the brand new and very fancy Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami to pick up my race credentials.

The kids were squabbling that day and Tory was being a real pain to his sister. As we stood in line at the credentials desk, I barked at him to leave his sister alone and behave himself. He made a face and scurried away.

The last I saw of him, he was diving under a table, which was covered by an overhanging linen cloth. Judy and Lanni stayed in line with me and, after I got my credential, I walked over to the table to get Tory.

I looked under the cloth and he was no longer there.

I got a little perturbed and we looked around the room for him. Then we went out into the massive lobby area and looked for him there, calling his name. I stopped at the front desk and asked if they had seen a young boy wandering around. They hadn't.

At first, we were just upset that he had walked away. After about 10 minutes of searching, we got worried.

I had the desk clerk call hotel security. They asked if Tory would run away and both Judy and I assured them he would never do that. At that point, they took his absence seriously and began a room to room search of the 35-story, 641-room hotel.

My stomach was in knots and, not knowing what else to do, I walked out the front door and started to walk toward nearby Biscayne Bay, hoping against hope to spot him. As I walked I saw a head pop up behind the seawall and then quickly duck down. It was Tory - hiding from me.

I was so angry, I could have spit nails. I'm a fast walker normally and I did a power walk straight to where I had seen him. I found him hiding behind the wall and grabbed him by the back his shirt  collar and kind of frog-marched him back to the hotel.

Tory was trying to tell me that it wasn't a big deal that he had wandered off. Then the doorman saw us coming and asked, "Is that Tory?"

Suddenly, he realized this was probably more serious than he had expected.

I called off the hotel search and apologized to the hotel staff and security people, who said they were just happy he was safe.

Of course, we told him he was grounded for at least a month. But it was hard to stay mad at that kid.

At the previous IMSA event in Miami, we were staying at an old hotel in downtown. The race course included part of Biscayne Boulevard, just outside the front entrance of the hotel, and the media center was the meeting rooms at the top of the 28-story building.

I asked Judy to bring the kids up to the media center to watch a practice session. She was credentialed, but the kids were not. As she tried to get into the elevator in the lobby, security stopped her and said the kids could not go up.

My wife, always quick on her feet, looked the guy in the eye and said, "Well, do you expect me to leave them here?" She quickly ushered them into the open elevator and pushed the button before the security guy had a chance to respond.

The next day, Tory asked Judy if he could walk up the stairs from our room to the media center to be with me? It was only a couple of floors, so she said yes.

Unfortunately, all the doors in the stairwell were locked from the outside. When Tory got to the top floor, he couldn't get in. He knocked but no one heard him.

Finally, he walked back down to the floor our room was on and found that door locked, too.

He did not panic, though. He walked the rest of the way to the lobby, trying the door on each floor along the way before finally finding an open door on the main floor.

Tory then went to the elevator and told the security guy he was going back to his room on the 25th floor. Once in the elevator, he rode to the top floor, found me and stayed with me until I had to start writing.

At that point, I called Judy to take the elevator up and fetch him. She found she could not go up on the elevator without going all the way to the lobby and showing her credential or room key first. But it all worked out in the end.

When the kids got a little older, they often went with me to the races and the tracks put them to work. Sometimes they handed out notes and drinks and other times did whatever errands came up.

Tory never got into it all that much, preferring to read his comic books or find a TV to watch, although he did enjoy talking with the other writers and photographers. But Lanni found she liked helping out.

We were at the Pocono track one year when Lanni, about 14 at the time, saved the day. The only copier in the media center stopped working. Calls to maintenance to come fix the machine went unanswered for long enough to cause a lot of concern.

At the end of the long day, I walked into the office to pick up the kids and was met by the track PR guy who said, "Lanni saved us. She fixed the copier. She's really something."

Turns out she figured out how to open the top of the copier and was able to clear a paper blockage when none of the adults on hand could manage it.

Those days were certainly fun and interesting.