Monday Morning Musings

There was absolutely no open wheel racing to catch this weekend. However, NASCAR nation rolled into Richmond, VA for their annual Spring Saturday night shootout.

I had no interest in watching this, but ran across it as K and I were looking for something to watch late Saturday night. K made her disdain known as soon as we heard Darrell Waltrip's voice in the booth. I don't blame her; I don't watch NASCAR racing any more. Mainly because it's oval racing 98% of the time and I find the majority of those races as fun as going to the dentist.

But there were only about 10 laps left and Kyle Busch was inside Dayyyuhl Jr battling for first place. I said, "They are going to wreck" and sure enough Kyle gets a little loose being pinch down low in the turn and Dayyyuhl Jr looks to chop down a him slightly and a spinnin' they go. My next comment was "Sonofa.... now watch these fans go nuts". And like clockwork the Jr fans were on the catch fence five deep like flies on fly paper. You know, the gooey amber colored ribbons you pull out of the little canisters and hang up for all the summer bugs?

You see Jr hasn't won a race in 71 tries, I think. BUT he is THE most marketable driver in NASCAR since the death of his dad at Daytona. That along with his Budweiser sponsorship, up until this year, was a promoters' wet dream. And NASCAR, no dummies, to pimping out their drivers(not bad in my mind), capitalized on this to no end; sometimes with suspicious calls near the ends of races or a particular driver getting 'the call'. No proof of this just a hunch.

And you know what? Jr is a genuinely good guy. He's not a phony, he's not a whiner, but he's just not that great of a racer. I don't think he's got the talent that his dad had. That's not a bad thing but sometimes the yahoos in the booth act as if he's the second coming of Christ; and the borderline homo erotic fanaticism by the fans freaks me out to no end.

I'm sure Kyle Busch had to have a police escort to get out of Richmond in one piece after that accident. But that's all it was, a racing incident; no more no less. But it did provide a little bit of entertainment on a Saturday night.