In the Field: Elliott Sadler

Bristol night race weekend is one that we as competitors look forward to all year, but for me personally and a group of my close friends, last weekend is also important for something else: Our trip to The Olde Farm.

I've told you before what a beautiful golf course it is, just outside Bristol, Va., and that I'm lucky enough to be a member. As usual, our schedules can sometimes put us in a bind, and the weather at Michigan the weekend before kinda did that to us.

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But we still managed to get the trip in, and while we did, you know we had to deal with something -- not only at The Olde Farm, but also all weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway: the heat. It was something people were all talking about, but I was fine with it.

I'm used to good Virginia humidity. South Boston Speedway is the hottest place on the planet, and I got used to it -- so what we experienced at Bristol last weekend was fine -- it was good weather.

I got there Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock and played 36 holes Wednesday and 36 holes Thursday. I felt great all weekend. It was fine, you just get used to it; and you make sure you do plenty of hydration, so I was in good shape as I looked forward to racing for four hours Saturday night at Bristol.

As it usually is, last week was great. The Olde Farm is one of the top-10 rated golf courses around -- and to me it means even more than that. It's a beautiful place, and like 12 of us played.

I flew up a bunch of my buddies from home, and we stayed in a cabin right on the golf course -- the first tee box -- and we walked out each morning and played 36 holes. And we had a ball -- just a great time, for two days.

And then a bunch of them stayed and hung out for the race Saturday night. So it was a great week for me, being able to spend time with them. We travel so much, I don't get to spend as much time as I need to with those guys.

Just the way we get on, making fun of each other and carrying on, is the highlight -- and I hit the ball great. I hadn't hit the ball that good in three or four years, so I played very good.

I've just got to work on my putting. My putting was not a highlight -- but just the stories and the camaraderie was by far, the best. We just brought a good group of guys -- not a bunch of scratch golfers, but just a good group of guys that we had a good time with, and it was cool.

Nothing really unusual happened out on the course. We did see some deer out there, because The Olde Farm is a theme, and there's a lot of corn, and fields laid out around it. It's beautiful, so late Wednesday afternoon we saw some deer down in the swamps, and it kind of got our blood pressure up a little bit because of course, everybody I brought in is from my hometown and they're all deer hunters.

So we all were laughing and saying that deer season was almost here.

But the coolest thing was one of my buddies, Cannon Watson, who was actually a kicker on the University of North Carolina football team, brought a guitar down with him.

We sat around Wednesday night at the cabin, ordered some food -- they brought us some pizza right down to the cabin -- and we sat around with Cannon playing his guitar and we sang all night. (Continued)