Cowboy Crush at The Bud Shoot Out - Daytona

The Cinderella Kid

Welcome back, race fans!!!! I missed y'all. Not enough to write anything, but I did miss you. I s'pose I coulda reviewed "Cars" and "Talladega Nights", which Cecil and I found highly entertaining, particularly the latter. Lord, lord, it's worth a rental if only to watch the outtakes of the two foul mouthed little boys, Walker and Texas Ranger, cursing up a storm. They say plenty of nastily hilarious things in the actual movie, but the outtakes are stupendous, and Cecil and I watched them at least 10 ten times. Every little boy should say "Why doncha shave yer balls, ya ol' zombie?!" to their grandiddy at least once in their childhood.

Okay then, down to business. Our long NASCAR drought was ended with the Bud Shoot Out which put a nice, $215,000.00 end to winner Tony Stewart's otherwise really crappy day. Also a nice beginning of the 2007 season for placer, "The Cinderella Kid", David Gilliland. (On the pre-qualifying show on SPEED on Sunday John Roberts stopped everything and MADE Spencer say Gilliland's name correctly, which will probably be the only time we ever hear him say it right.) I'd taken note of Gilliland in the ARCA series in early 2006 and liked the cut of his jib, so it filled me with great glee when he won that Busch race last year, seemingly against all odds, and that fortuitous win catapulted him into the seat left vacant in the #38 by Elliot Sadler where he immediately began to outperform Sadler in that particular ride. Best of luck to David G. and ol' Crazy Yates - who is seeming Crazy Like a Fox right about now, with Gilliland in P-1 and fellow Bengal owner, Ricky Rudd in P-2 for the Daytona 500. I was worried for Gilliland when he signed on with Yates last year, fearing he'd show badly because of bad equipment and be written off before he got a chance to show off his considerable talent, but I was obviously - and thankfully - wrong. Shew! Look for him to have a "Denny Hamlin sort of year".

The Pre-Race Hoop-de-Dew:

Caught a couple of minutes of Grand Marshall Dierks Bentley's pre-race concert and boy, oh boy did he stank. Flat as a board. He clearly couldn't hear himself in the monitors at first and God-dayum was he off pitch at first - but he improved a bit as he went on. Not enough to save the tune, though. And what's up with his name? Pretentious much? It's gotta be his real, given name, because no self-respecting country singer would deliberately pick a faggy handle like that.

THE INVOCATION: By Reverend John Long III of Truman-King Community Church gave a pleasant and heartfelt sermonette asking that everyone keep the victims of those nasty Florida tornadoes in their hearts and prayers as well as praying for the safety of everyone at the track. He seemed like a real nice fella. But say, is it just me, or does it seem like the Powers That Be go way far out of their ways to get black preachers to give the invocations whenever it's remotely possible?

THE NATIONAL ANTHEM : by Asylum/Curb recording artists, Cowboy Crush . I see five girls on their website photo, but only four were onstage singing. Dunno what that's about, I don't know nuttin' about these chickas except they are really good singers and their harmonies were just tight as a tick. Good for them and all that, but me 'n' Cec just didn't care for their rendition. Just not our cup of gin, even though it was very, very well done. It had this kind of Broadway air to it, which I found troubling. Not flagrantly Broadway, just kinda sorta, and upon rewatching the video I realized they kinda reminded me of ABBA, which in and of itself is cool - I actually like ABBA - but these gals harmonies hit me like the t.v. commercials I've seen for Mamma Mia! , sooooo..... I dunno. Dale Jarrett seemed to enjoy it. Do what you will with that.

Cecil gives 'em Three Stars for technical merit, but only One Star for "the 'fitness' of things, as described in the ancient Celt aural tradition."
I hear that. Hell, I'll raise him one and give 'em Four Stars for technical merit, they're real good at what they do. I just don't like my American National Anthem performed by a buncha redneck Lesbians trying to emulate a couple of Swedish chicks.

I'll give them Two Stars , though, just because I can still recall some truly, truly, completely Godawful versions from last year, and Cowboy Crush's rendition didn't out right offend me, it just wasn't "right". Or as Cec inferred, "It didn't fit".

THE COMMAND: given by Grand Marshall, Dierks Bentley. Sigh. It's gonna be another year of men who just don't "feel it", isn't it? Ol' Dierks sorta shouted out the first NASCAR related "Gentlemen, start your engines!" of the year, but all things considered, it was pretty lackluster. Maybe he couldn't hear himself in the monitors again, who knows? But surely he coulda done better than he did. Two Stars from Willard's Garage, cuz we're in a generous & forgiving mood right now.

See y'all after the Duels / Duals later this week - meanwhile try and stay above the yellow line.