Live-blogging (sorta) today's race
All times are approximate:
10:15 a.m.: Still home. (I work 11-ish to 8-ish.) Breakfast? Check. Shower? Coming up. Race? Race?! Crikey - it's on.
10:16 a.m.: ESPN2 is indeed showing the race. (Whew - got that right in today's paper.) Cars circling the track. That's a good sign.
10:18 a.m.: Shot of the infield. Most of the RVs are gone. The ones there must have been abandoned.
10:19 a.m.: Crowd shot. ESPN crew makes mention of NASCAR diehards. Me, I think the folks in the stands died of exposure Sunday and no one bothered to remove them. I mean, who comes to any sort of sporting event on a Tuesday?
More after the jump ...
10:22 a.m.: Pace car heads to pit road ... and all 43 cars follow. The reason? Fog. Seems the spotters can't see the backstretch. Great. About the only weather left is snow.
10:23 a.m.: It's snowing! Oh, wait, no, it's fog. Never mind.
10:25 a.m.: Mike Helton comes upstairs to deliver the weather forecast to Rusty and Punch. Who needs Al Roker!
10:27 a.m.: After Helton leaves, Punch gushes (and I'm paraphrasing): In what other sport does the sport's president come upstairs to the booth and talk to you, the viewer? Uh, that would be all of them, Dr. Jerry. If the Panthers game on Sunday was postponed to Tuesday, you'd better believe Roger Goodell would be on TV somewhere. If you want to impress me, tell Helton that, no, no he can't be on TV.
11 a.m.: Drop my son at work. WTQR, the local country station, breaks from its Faith Hill-Keith Urban-Garth Brooks (people still listen to him?!) playlist to air the race. That's a first. They can't usually be bothered to air the Monday rain-delay races. (Yep, I guess people *do* still listen to Garth Brooks and get mad when they can't hear him.)
11:05 a.m.: Green flag. Greg Biffle takes the lead ... Greg Biffle? Wait, that's right - they're not lined up by points. They qualified four days ago.
11:06 a.m.: Montoya spins, nearly takes out the back half of the field.
11:10 a.m.: Several drivers between Friendly Center and here emulate Montoya. I steer through the smoke, vow to hire a spotter, and arrive safely at my day job. If you don't want to wear headphones at the office, your best bet might be NASCAR.com's slow-as-heck lap-by-lap report. It's better than nothing.
Comments (1)
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Glad to see a NJ driver had a good run today after a rather few bleak days for racers from NJ.
John, I hope you can check out www.modseriesscene.com to read about one of the current good asphalt modifed drivers who was killed at Thompson, CT last Thursday, John Blewett III. I first started following local racing when his father raced.
It was a pretty tragic accident between two brothers racing for the lead.
Posted on August 21, 2007 1:57 PM