What did I miss?
Never try watching a NASCAR race during a wedding reception, especially when you're staying at the reception site, which in this case was my parents house.
Why?
1. It's bad manners, especially when the bride (my sister in this case) is downstairs and the TV upstairs is tuned to "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Dora the Explorer" to pacify my two-year-old. The kid will always win.
2. You'll completely miss what's going on.
When I did get a peek (I was changing videos, okay? I called it an intermission, a concept my younger son didn't quite get), I saw that Earnhardt and Gordon were both out (Wouldn't it be fitting if the two of them had knocked each other out? I thought). I also noticed Sadler was leading. Believe it or not, I didn't see a tire blow in that five-minute span.
That's the long way around to get to the point, which is this: I had absolutely no idea until Sunday morning that the Joe's Towing and Body Shop 500 might have been one of the worst races in NASCAR history.
Dustin Long: "They ran in circles Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway, but drivers didn't call it racing. They called it survival."
Ed Hardin: "NASCAR's theater of the absurd returned to its most visible stage Saturday night after waiting for a football game to end and before the demolition derby began."
Charlotte columnist Scott Fowler: "Fender, meet wall. Boredom, meet tedium. Fiasco, meet debacle."
Fox Sports' Jeff Hammond: "Wheeler must fix the track before May."
Marc at Full Throttle: "I’m guessing Humpy Wheeler will dream of waving a magic wand and returning the infamous 'Humpy Bumps' to their original position and he had never heard of the term 'levigating.'"
CJ delivers a must-read on the physics of tires.
Also, The Diecast Dude channels Madness. And The Scotsman has all the photos you need, including one of Ryan Newman's car with an attachment.
I'm sensing a trend here. That bad, huh?
On the bright side, it's just six days till Martinsville. Good times.
Comments (7)
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John, I'm sure glad NBC didn't cut away from the Notre Dame/USC game for the race. That was one excellent game.
Oh you wanted to talk about the race. OK, that was the worst 800 miles of racing between Friday and Saturday nights and I fell asleep both nights.
I was there the night Kulwicki broke 175 in qualifying; the racing was much better at CMS back then.
Humpy should be levigated.
Posted on October 17, 2005 4:01 PM
Humpy's the greatest promoter in NASCAR history, this is just a bad decision made. Hopefully he'll be smarter when repaving.
Posted on October 17, 2005 5:17 PM
We can only go up from here...
Posted on October 17, 2005 6:26 PM
Everyone check the latest post in The Catfish Show, Mr. Newsom himself is mentioned in it.
Posted on October 17, 2005 8:45 PM
Thanks for the link Jon.
While Gordon and Dale Jr. didn't take each other out of the race, I thought it highly ironic while Gordon was interviewed next to his smoking battered car, Dale was stuffing his into the SAFER barriers.
Irony never sleeps.
Posted on October 17, 2005 9:34 PM
I feel for you on the race versus wedding reception thing. My brother's reception was the same night as this year's Bristol night race. About ten of us kept running back and forth from the party to the hotel bar to catch bits of the race.
Needless to say, big brother was not happy with little sister LOL.
Posted on October 17, 2005 10:14 PM
Bristol night race, huh, Carrie?
Man, that's a tough one.
In the scheme of things, I figure my sister's only getting married once, and the Cup series will be back at Charlotte for the Asphalt Dealers and Spreaders 500 in May. So I made the right call.
Of course, this was my (younger) sister's way of getting back at me after years of sibling abuse.
Posted on October 18, 2005 1:52 PM