by Steve K
I don’t lay claim to being the most rabid racing fan, but I’ll be looking in on the Daytona 500 today. While I don’t follow NASCAR closely enough to have any favorite drivers, I do enjoy racing in general; the cars, the drivers, the choreography of a well-practiced pit crew that can refuel and change 4 tires in mere seconds, the drama, the possibility of a close finish, and the WRECKS! (my favorite!) Right now I’m enrolled in the George Carlin school of thought – “I don’t know about you, but that’s what I’m looking for in auto racing: a nice crash and a car fire. I don’t care who wins these races – it’s the same five rednecks who win all the time anyway” I realize this statement may be the equivalent of whizzing in the Cornflakes of die-hard NASCAR fans, but all I’m really saying is right now I really don’t favor any one driver over another, plus I like wrecks – nasty, ugly, teeth-clentching, sphincter-tightening, nightmare-inducing mishaps that take out 10 cars at once, sending them in several different unintended directions, sliding sideways, spinning out, skid marks, smoke & debris everywhere. Close finishes are exciting as well. I remember the 2007 finish at Daytona, close finish but I don’t remember who won because it was overshadowed by Clint Bowyer crossing the finish line in 18th place upside down and on fire! Let me repeat that…..upside down, and on freaking fire!
Well, if you can’t win you can always steal the show by making a dramatic finish. Upside down and on fire usually means you don’t finish the race, but Clint’s car slid across the finish line on it’s roof. Everyone else crossed the line with their wheels (boring!) Now the bar has been raised – how do you top that?
- Upside-down, on fire, and proposing to your fiance’.
- Upside-down, on fire, and radio in the correct answer to Alex Trebek on Jeopardy.
- Finish the race upside down and have David Blaine or Chris Angel crawl out of your flaming car.
- The Terminator crawling out of your car on fire, melting away his bio-covering to reveal it’s metal inerts.
- 20 midget clowns running out of the wreckage in all directions.
- Finding no driver at all in the car, the ultimate unsolved mystery!
- Super Dave Osborne cussing out his sidekick, Fuji, as Fuji is dousing Dave with a fire extinguisher.
Martina McBride (hottie!) sang the National Anthem, and didn’t screw it up like Christina Aguilera (dimwit!) did at the Super Bowl. I guess if I had to pull for one driver, it would be Dale Jr. this year, being this is the 10th anniversary of Dale Sr.’s death at this same track, plus Jr. qualified for the pole position, but afterward during practice he wrecked his car and damaged it so badly that he had to use a back-up car; and the rules say if you use a car other than the one you qualify in, you have to start at the back of the line. I have a thing for the underdog.
The tv ratings for this race are pretty good, but if you’ve been following my blog you know I’m always looking for ways to boost ratings, like sending condemned criminals onto the track on a unicycle just to see how long they’d survive. If they can pedal around the track for one lap (and it’s 2.5 miles around!) while juggling three bowling pins without dropping them, falling off the unicycle, or becoming road-kill, then I say they should go free, even if he was convicted of assassinating the Queen.
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