Food City 500 - Bristol, March 25, 2007
(Streeeeeeeeeeeetch.) Ho hum. Oh me. Late start this week, eh? Busy day already at Willard's - had our first customer at 6:30am. Little Bavarian girl. Had a Honda Dream that needed work. Paid us in Deutcsche Marks er sumpin'. Heckuva nice gal, though. Guten Tag, to you too, Fraulein!
So. Bristol. Hm. Whazzit just us, or was it not quite as exciting in past years? Maybe it was - it kinda seems to me like every year I keep thinking, "Isn't this supposed to be more exciting?" and then right at the end - during the third encore, BAM!! "Moon River"!!!! -- oh wait. That was an Andy Williams show at Branson...
I mean, during the last three laps - WHAMMO! We got us a dog fight! And this year was no different. Once again we see Jeff Burton and Kyle fucking Busch duking it out for the second time this year. And damn if the biggest surprise wasn't that Busch didn't wreck old Jeff. Or vice versa. Which - yanno - you wouldn't expect from Jeff. But Briscoe Darlin would say - and many of the fans agreed - "He had a legal right."
Much as I despise those Busch kids, I'll give Kyle this much: that kid can save a car from wrecks that only a small handful of other drivers could. Probably because he's had so damn much practice, cuz that kid can wreck all by himself. We've seen it happen thousands of times. Even during testing. So Burton did give Busch a gentle noodge to push him outta the way, knowing that it was fully within Busch's capacity to save it. The Kid did save it, and went on to win the race fair and square.
It makes me sick to death to see a Burton lose to a Busch, but Kyle seems to be picking up on the Martin Martin school of racing, and if it were to stick (I don't see that happening...), I'd be happy. He seems to have a slightly higher IQ than his big brother, but only time will tell if he'll adapt to that style of racing permanently. And what the hey, Jeff's still only 3 points behind Championship Points Leader Jeff Gordon, so we go that going for us.
Which is nice.
So on the the pre-race ceremonies.
THE INVOCATION : given by the Reverend Mike Rife? Wright? -(who knows, the still lame ABC/ESPN neglected to credit him in print onscreen.) From The Van Zant ? Church of Christ in Van Zant?, Virginia. (We'll go 'head and say "Van Zant", since comic/musician Tim Wilson claims to be a "Skynyrd Baptist, so it kinda fits with that theme.) It was short and sweet, and Rev. Mike sounded a good bit like Mr. Haney from Green Acres; so that was a bonus.
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM sung pretty ably by Mercury Recording Artist Billy Currinton would have been perfectly fine. EXCEPT that instead of singing the prescribed "Oh say can you see", he sang "Whoah-ho say can you see". I'm sorry, that ought to be an automatic forfit, but we'll just take one full point away for that, and then another one for later when he said "Whoah-ho say does that...." later on. Doofus. Other than that, and the extra few notes he used on "wave", which he actually did fairly tastefully - tastefully enough that I woulda overlooked that altogether, he gets:
TWO STARS From everybody at Willard's Garage
THE FLYOVER: Four VFMA 312 Checkerboards out of Beaufort, S.C. They were beautiful, and ABC at least had the courtesy to credit them onscreen. Which, if they for some stupid reason can only put a banner for one blessed thing at the bottom of the screen, it should be for the military doing the flyover, so they got one thing right, at least.
THE COMMAND: By Racing Legend, Junior Johnson , was (duh) fucking cool, man!!! Beforehand, I had said, "Oh my God! Please don't let him screw it up, because I couldn't stand to have to say anything bad about Junior Johnson." Cecil shot back with, "It's Junior fucking Johnson! He could fart it and I'd give him four stars!!!"
Heh. Well, no worries - you could tell he was shouting it as loud as he possibly could - you know how his voice is, he don't have a lot of lung-age to back up super-loud hollerin'.... and cuz he's still racy, he said it real fast, too! "Gentlemen, start your engines!!!"
FOUR STARS for Junior! and a big Rebel Yell from Cecil and me.
EXTRA SUMPIN' They let D.W. wave the Green Flag. He tried to get everyone to yell "Boogity, boogity, boogity" but you couldn't tell if it worked out or not cuz the cars were so loud. Prolly just as well....
A little bonus "heads up" - I just heard Tony Stewart say that they'd have A.J. Foyt on as an extra special guest on his Sirius radio show right around Indy 500 time!! Gotta remind myself to buy my Daddy an indoor Sirius radio before then - he's been a Foyt fan ever since Foyt started driving, and he's been a fan of Smoke ever since I told him that Foyt loved him some Tony Stewart. Previous to that, my Daddy hadn't cared much for Smoke, but that's all it took. Now Tony the Tiger is his man! Previous to that he'd backed Jr. (and still does), cuz he was an Ironhead fan, too.
So. Bristol. Hm. Whazzit just us, or was it not quite as exciting in past years? Maybe it was - it kinda seems to me like every year I keep thinking, "Isn't this supposed to be more exciting?" and then right at the end - during the third encore, BAM!! "Moon River"!!!! -- oh wait. That was an Andy Williams show at Branson...
I mean, during the last three laps - WHAMMO! We got us a dog fight! And this year was no different. Once again we see Jeff Burton and Kyle fucking Busch duking it out for the second time this year. And damn if the biggest surprise wasn't that Busch didn't wreck old Jeff. Or vice versa. Which - yanno - you wouldn't expect from Jeff. But Briscoe Darlin would say - and many of the fans agreed - "He had a legal right."
Much as I despise those Busch kids, I'll give Kyle this much: that kid can save a car from wrecks that only a small handful of other drivers could. Probably because he's had so damn much practice, cuz that kid can wreck all by himself. We've seen it happen thousands of times. Even during testing. So Burton did give Busch a gentle noodge to push him outta the way, knowing that it was fully within Busch's capacity to save it. The Kid did save it, and went on to win the race fair and square.
It makes me sick to death to see a Burton lose to a Busch, but Kyle seems to be picking up on the Martin Martin school of racing, and if it were to stick (I don't see that happening...), I'd be happy. He seems to have a slightly higher IQ than his big brother, but only time will tell if he'll adapt to that style of racing permanently. And what the hey, Jeff's still only 3 points behind Championship Points Leader Jeff Gordon, so we go that going for us.
Which is nice.
So on the the pre-race ceremonies.
THE INVOCATION : given by the Reverend Mike Rife? Wright? -(who knows, the still lame ABC/ESPN neglected to credit him in print onscreen.) From The Van Zant ? Church of Christ in Van Zant?, Virginia. (We'll go 'head and say "Van Zant", since comic/musician Tim Wilson claims to be a "Skynyrd Baptist, so it kinda fits with that theme.) It was short and sweet, and Rev. Mike sounded a good bit like Mr. Haney from Green Acres; so that was a bonus.
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM sung pretty ably by Mercury Recording Artist Billy Currinton would have been perfectly fine. EXCEPT that instead of singing the prescribed "Oh say can you see", he sang "Whoah-ho say can you see". I'm sorry, that ought to be an automatic forfit, but we'll just take one full point away for that, and then another one for later when he said "Whoah-ho say does that...." later on. Doofus. Other than that, and the extra few notes he used on "wave", which he actually did fairly tastefully - tastefully enough that I woulda overlooked that altogether, he gets:
TWO STARS From everybody at Willard's Garage
THE FLYOVER: Four VFMA 312 Checkerboards out of Beaufort, S.C. They were beautiful, and ABC at least had the courtesy to credit them onscreen. Which, if they for some stupid reason can only put a banner for one blessed thing at the bottom of the screen, it should be for the military doing the flyover, so they got one thing right, at least.
THE COMMAND: By Racing Legend, Junior Johnson , was (duh) fucking cool, man!!! Beforehand, I had said, "Oh my God! Please don't let him screw it up, because I couldn't stand to have to say anything bad about Junior Johnson." Cecil shot back with, "It's Junior fucking Johnson! He could fart it and I'd give him four stars!!!"
Heh. Well, no worries - you could tell he was shouting it as loud as he possibly could - you know how his voice is, he don't have a lot of lung-age to back up super-loud hollerin'.... and cuz he's still racy, he said it real fast, too! "Gentlemen, start your engines!!!"
FOUR STARS for Junior! and a big Rebel Yell from Cecil and me.
EXTRA SUMPIN' They let D.W. wave the Green Flag. He tried to get everyone to yell "Boogity, boogity, boogity" but you couldn't tell if it worked out or not cuz the cars were so loud. Prolly just as well....
A little bonus "heads up" - I just heard Tony Stewart say that they'd have A.J. Foyt on as an extra special guest on his Sirius radio show right around Indy 500 time!! Gotta remind myself to buy my Daddy an indoor Sirius radio before then - he's been a Foyt fan ever since Foyt started driving, and he's been a fan of Smoke ever since I told him that Foyt loved him some Tony Stewart. Previous to that, my Daddy hadn't cared much for Smoke, but that's all it took. Now Tony the Tiger is his man! Previous to that he'd backed Jr. (and still does), cuz he was an Ironhead fan, too.
posted by The Dixie Butcher at 8:50 PM
5 Comments:
Even tho I'd already seen the headline and knew who won, I was still yelling at the TV tonight as I was finishing watching the race, "PUNT him Jeff!" Kyle tried to put Jeff in the wall in the Busch race at Vegas (or was it Cali, who can tell them apart?) and just wrecked himself instead.
I said it during the Daytona 500, he was looking for a place to wreck all day and finally found it on the last lap. I can't count the number of times this year I've said, "Kyle's wrecked" only to see him save it and continue on. Saving a car that's sideways at 150-190mph once is amazing. Doing it multiple times week after week is just incredible. Damn kid can drive that's for sure, but he's still a prick.
I think Busch Baby plays on a merry-go-round for practice
I'm not a Kyle Busch fan by any means, but I've been watching him closely since he got busted for doing donuts in the KFC parking lot around the corner their in Mechanicsville last year coming back from a driver's safety lecture to some high school kids.
He hangs it out there, like Earnhart Senior or Junior Johnson, with just as much attitude. You figure he's going to win, wreck, or blow up. Exciting to watch, but still a bug eyed creep.
I was waiting to see if you would rank Junior on the command. Hard to top that.
Bristol races are more exciting in person than on TV. In person you can't even believe they're running that fast, at that place.
Greetings from the Dirty South (Pacific that is). New Plymouth, New Zealand - find that on an atlas.
I came across your blog from Wes Freed or DBT or somesuch, can't rightly remember.
NASCAR is the reason I gave up a good paying graphic design job to become an 'artist' (haw haw) - so I could watch big show. It's on live Monday mornings about 8am (for your Sunday races). The best thing is we get NO ADVERTS - when you guys go to an adbreak we just go to an incar shot (usually Junior) and just ride around for a few laps.
Anyway, to business. Bristol wasn't the usual fun because everybody was being so damned nice to each other. I think it's simply down to people not wanting to trash their COT's. I hope that's the case anyway - not 'co-opetition' breaking out all over.
That little Busch prick is lucky Jeff Burton is such a nice guy, he coulda easily moved him up the track but raced him clean. Would Busch return the favour. Doubt it.
As for Gaytona - Kasey Kahne gets my vote, that mincing walk during driver introductions is too much of a giveaway. Seems like a heck of a nice guy, good racer - but just looks too goddamned 'pleased' all the time.
RIP Benny Parsons.
WELCOME ALASTAIR! ( I used to have a cat named Alastair- best fucking cat in the world!) Thanks for the awesome introduction & assessments - you're gonna fit right in here.
You know, it's almost a shame you don't get the commercials, because there are a few pretty damn funny ones - but most suck.
It did seem like everyone was being "extra nice" that day - but after hearing various drivers on various Sirius talk shows, it sounds like they weren't trying to be nice so much as just get out of there alive. - that COT - or as Mojo Nixon calls it, "The Wing Ding" - is gonna take them some getting used to, it appears.
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