So, I’m not sure how many of our loyal readers (yes, all 3 of you) watch NASCAR. I can tell you with confidence that the other R wants nothing to do with the sport. Yes, the cars drive round and round and at first glance can seem boring. But, I seem to have a sweet tooth for some good ole southern racin’ and yes, Days of Thunder is one of my favorite movies. Why is this? Because, of the drama between the drivers and the governing body. It’s like combining a ten car accident on the interstate, with the fighting of hockey with the dysfunctional governing body of…maybe Olympic gymnastics?
This leads me to describe one of the worst Daytona 500s I’ve seen in a very long time. If you haven’t heard, we are in the midst of an economic meltdown. NASCAR heavily relies on sponsorship dollars to fund its race teams. Did you know it can cost as much as 20 million dollars a year to fund a team? There are 43 teams that make a race every weekend. That’s a lot of money. Also, if you don’t watch often, three of the four car brands circling the track every weekend come from Detroit. With the car industry on life support and corporations hoarding every penny found, NASCAR desperately needed a strong 500 to increase viewers and attendance. Instead, it got its typical drama combined with a shortened race due to poor contingency planning by the sport.
The biggest issue of the day, besides the rain, was my favorite, yet slightly overrated driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. I loved his daddy, so naturally I followed Junior. However, Junior doesn’t drive like his daddy and doesn’t win like his daddy, causing a lot of frustration for me and many other NASCAR fans. A good friend of mine and I often complain after a race how Junior once again screwed things up. Well, during this race he happened to spin out Brian Vickers shortly before the rain came. Many of the commentators and cry-baby drivers claimed that Junior recklessly hit Vickers, causing a major pileup. Well, first Junior had an incredible run on him and Vickers recklessly blocked his pass. As Junior was trying to come back into the race from the grass, he “rubbed” him. And as Harry Hogge said in Thunder, rubbin, son, is racin’. If the other driver’s can’t handle it…they need to go to Dancin’ with the Stars.
That leads to the question: why were they racing so hard with so many laps left? Well, rain was coming and in NASCAR you can’t race in the rain because of the slick tires used by the sport. Now, I understand that NASCAR can’t control the weather. But, they knew the bad weather was approaching hours in advance. Instead of moving up the biggest race of the year by an hour or so, and cut out their horrible pre-race celebration…they kept to the script, ensuring a rain ruined race. The BIGGEST race! The Super Bowl of NASCAR! It would be like if at the end of the third quarter of the Super Bowl, they cancelled the fourth quarter because of rain. NASCAR needs to learn a lesson from MLB. When the weather delayed Game 5 in the 6th inning of the World Series last year, did MLB place the game in the books? No, it let it resume days later. NASCAR should probably run the 500 a weekend earlier, or schedule the second race of the season somewhere on the east coast, rather than California so they could delay the race if needed. Instead, they stopped it only 3/4ths of the way through, with a lot of racing left to the imagination.
This year's Daytona 500 gets a Spork Rating of:
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