God Help Me.....

but I might as well confess that I LIKE NASCAR. There. I said it out loud, as it were. My brother has long been a fan. Every year, the Daytona 500 is run on his birthday weekend. Next year, the 50th anniversary of the race, it will be run ON his birthday on February 17. There is always a big party at his house. We watch all the pre-race coverage and have a drawing where everyone chips in a couple bucks and we pick a driver's name out of one of Mark's NASCAR caps. If you've got the winning driver, you get the pot. There's food and drink, and we watch the race. We critique both the performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" and the delivery of the words "Gentlemen, start your engines!" My sister in law is never going to live down the year that she inadvertently hit the mute button as those words were delivered. The commercials that air during the Daytona 500 are probably second only to those aired during the Superbowl. And they're usually funnier, if not quite so glitzy.

Anyhow, whenever we are at my brother's house on a Sunday afternoon during race season, NASCAR is there on the TV and the satellite radio by the grill. My dad likes NASCAR, too, and it was always on at his house on Sunday afternoon after dinner. Before long, I found myself actually taking an interest. Listening to discussions of things like lines on the track and pit strategies. Actually starting to really see what was happening on the track beside the non-NASCAR fan's observation that it is nothing but "left turn, left turn".

To those who've never watched, you may never quite understand what it is about the sport that's fascinating. I find it admirable that these guys run at speeds approaching 200 miles an hour with an average of 6" between them and another car. Either in front of them, behind them or beside them. Or some combination of all of the above. Those tracks that look so flat from the Goodyear blimp's coverage are often steeply banked. The average temperature inside the cars is 130 degrees. That's before you put on the flame-retardant jumpsuit and the helmet. The races usually last about 4 hours. That's a long time to be in such a hot environment. Without power steering and cruise control. Drivers have to listen to their spotters in the helmet's radio and still focus on what's actually happening around them on the track. They have to talk to their crew chief about how the car is driving and track conditions. And remain alert enough to steer into those sharply banked turns and around and through wrecks and debris on the track. It's an admirable accomplishment to coordinate all that, and I'm actually kind of amazed that there aren't more wrecks on any given Sunday. And that things don't often get more serious than someone "getting a little loose" and a couple guys "trading paint". I find it comically endearing that anyone who is interviewed, from driver to crew chief to spotter to the guy that is responsible for tightening the lug nuts knows to work the name of the car's chief sponsor and the team owner into any interview. And you want to know why companies sponsor cars? It's the cheapest TV advertising they'll ever get when all is said and done. Get a top driver in your corner and it's a sure bet that your name is in front of everyone watching for four solid hours of TV time and even the announcers in the booth are saying your name. As is typical of many Southerners (and NASCAR was started by southern boys), NASCAR has come along way by letting us all think they're dumb with that Southern drawl and generally polite manner.

And since I'm confessing, I like Tony Stewart. I want a Number 20 Home Depot hat, and a long-sleeved t-shirt and a hoodie sweatshirt. I'd put a bumpersticker on the Saturn. I really would. I don't even look good in orange! I can't entirely explain this phenomenon. But I think what I like about the guy is that, as a friend put it, "he's had his bite of the apple and no one, not Home Depot or NASCAR, is going to hold him hostage because of it." He lets us see him being a jerk or getting well and truly pissed about something and he also lets us see that hometown boy made good when he climbs the fence and kisses the ground at the Indy track. And if he ever gets the boot from Home Depot or his team, he'll drive something somewhere for somebody. Yeah, he's a competitor, but he's still having fun with it all.

So does it show that it is my day off and that it is too hot to do laundry? No posts for a month and now TWO in one day!