Yes fans, it’s mid-February…and it’s the time when football season is just about done, when pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona for the start of spring training, and oh yeah, when forty-three stock cars traverse around the 2.5 mile tri-oval superspeedway that is the Daytona International Speedway for 200 laps at 190 mph or more. Mere inches and mili-seconds can mean the difference between first place and a night of celebrating a win in one of the most prestigious racing events of the year.
But for forty-two other teams, their driver will deliver the pat-in-the-back but truly disappointed runner-up-on-back-talk that they’ll have to perform in their post-race interview obligations. What February means to fans and competitors alike is that another season of racing is just looming around the distance, and it means our Sunday afternoons (or Monday mornings for us 12/13 hours ahead of the race location) will be spent listening to radio communication between driver and team, the tv, or our computers tracking the live scoring and raceview of the field.
What does this time of the year mean to fans? Perhaps the word tight won’t refer to your relationship with your best friend, but a word you may wince at if your driver’s car is struggling to keep up with the cars running fast laps in their loose to neutral-handling steel chariots. Sixteen seconds will seem like a minute, as you’ll closely pay attention to the pit stops that are performed like a choreographed routine for some dance show. You’ll actually cheer for a car whose product is one you would never use, for you like 7Up over Amp’D, but you’re a Dale Jr fan. The kids (actually, you) will probably head to your local die-cast/collectible store and buy the latest gear and cars to add to your already huge (but growing) collection of memorobilla in the house. We’ll talk to our friends who’ll talk trash to us or inform us like they’re Mike Joy or Dr. Jerry Punch with a bit of ol’ DW and the late Benny Parsons in them. You’ll probably do a ton of praying and hoping that a Bodine won’t enter a Cup race, cause that might mean a guarantee wreck for your driver. You might even line your cars up in order on your living room table, superstitious that if you don’t, well, it’s a certain 34th place finish at Texas for Matt Kenseth.
Perhaps persumptious and not even accurate to what you do on racedays this year or in year’s past (although I may have given a self-confession of how I spent race days in the States), however you enjoy races, be excited and ready for the 60th edition of NASCAR’s top series going at it again in this year’s 50th running of the Daytona 500 and those other 35 point races that truly matter (or do they?) to the championship chase. The once dubbed Car of Tomorrow is now the Car of Today or just the car, racing uniforms have truly evolved to look space-age looking, and tv coverage has reached a new zenith in presentation that can only hope to be an indication of the tv coverage of this year (which looks promising for ESPN). So get ready race fans, we at Checkers or Wreckers look forward to discussing and looking at NASCAR 2008 will deliver, and Katie and I hope your race days will truly be a flag-to-flag experience!
- Rob
