Singings & So-ons from the Truck & Busch Races in Georgia

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We'll do this quick and dirty today, as Aint Dixie is savin' up for the really fun stuff in the Cup Race tomorrow. Rankin' Rob says Quentin Tarantino is giving the command, and the boys back at the shop cain't hardly wait! We reckon he's going to be promoting his new joint venture with perennial Willard's Garage favorite, Roberto Rodriguez, called Grindhouse . And it looks, as the saying goes, "Hotter than Georgia Asphalt in July."

For flavors sake, I'll add that as I type this I can hear cars roaring around Richmond International Raceway, which is 1.5 miles from Willard's Garage. Must be having a Richard Petty Driving Experience there today, as it sounds like stock cars. When the Indy Cars are there it sounds more like gigantic mosquitoes.

CRAFTSMEN TRUCK SERIES: American Commercial Lines 200

The Invocation : was given ably by Rev. Tom Summers of the Carver Road Baptist Church of Griffen, Georgia. He specifically asked for God to grace the pit crews, and then I could have sworn he asked that God get "all the Glory" for the race.

How odd.

Our National Anthem : was performed by a Miss Holly Summey. I Googled her & couldn't find anything, so we reckon she's just some local gal with nice pipes. Cute little blonde thing with a turned up nose. Looked like most all of the NASCAR wives and pit lizards, but she did a fine job singing. She was a hair flat in a lot of places, but not so bad the average person would notice. She did use TEN!! count 'em TEN!! notes on the word "wave" - which really makes me mad, as y'all know, so:

TWO STARS from Dixie
-and-
THREE AND A HALF STARS from Cecil, who apparently got distracted by her comliness.

The Command : was given by American Commeercial Lines CEO, Jerry Linzey, and lemme tell ya, people... (excuse me while I giggle first....) - Mr. Linzey really tried hard to put some air in it, and he shouted it out fairly well in a tenorish voice, but he lisped like a sleepy drag queen, Bless His Heart. Wethinks Jerry might be a fairy. And that's all good- cuz you know what we love at Willard's. There is little more pleasant to the ear than the drawl of an effiminate Southern man.

So THREE STARS for Jerry's, "Driversth! Sthart yer engines!!!!!"

And on a somewhat separate (??!!??) note, it's always nice to have Michael Waltrip in the booth announcing the truck races - his commentary is always entertaining. As is Todd Bodine insisting on calling Phil Parsons "Philsy". We love that.

+++++++++++

BUSCH SERIES: Nicorette 300

Invocation: Bill Brannen, AMS Chaplain. Nothing special, really. Thank you Lord Baby Jesus and all.

The National Anthem: sung by The New Life Inspirational Gospel Choir, which was a whole bunch of black college kids from various schools. and whose motto is "To magnify God, edify the believer and evangelize the world, beginning at home!". Okay. Thanks, Kids! Nice job! I feel magnified, edified and evangelized.

Their arrangement was oddly Ivy League in tone, but there were a few shouty hot-doggers in the group who couldn't help showing off their Gospel chops a bit, despite the very WASPY arrangement, and overall it was cool. A tad uneven tonally, but you're going to get that when you have 10 or 20 people singing into 3 or 4 microphones at the same time.

THREE STARS from Willard's.

And a question: they seem to try to employee black singers a good bit for the National Anthem - which we have no problem with at all, as long as they don't get too notey. We don't like it when white folks get too notey either. But do y'all think NASCAR tries to go out of their way to hire black singers & entertainers whenever possible? As part of this almost desperate push for diversity? It just seems to us that sometimes they're trying too hard & being painfully obvious about it. Like in the winner's circle at any given race, I swear to God I think they deliberately place black folks right behind whoever the winner is, so when the clip gets shown on newscasts across the US people can say, "Wow! There's a black guy at a NASCAR race!"

THE COMMAND: was given by the Parsons family, as the race was dedicated to B.P. Very nice, and very touching. Phil resolutely said, "BP, this one's for you.", then the family all shouted "Gentlemen! Start your engines!!" in unison.

It was very nice, and very moving. God bless them all.