{image1} I can honestly say that I gave NASCAR the old college try. I can't say that my effort cost me anything, nor did I come away with some sort of inner awakening. In fact, the race was quite boring. No matter how you look at it, laps 50 through 150 were nothing more than a bunch of cars driving in a circle not exactly trying to win, but making sure that they didn't lose.
Many people say that other sports are like this as well. For example, most say all you have to do is watch the last five minutes of an NBA game. For many games this theory holds true, but there is the chance that during the second and third quarters one team can dominate the other and make the margin too large to overcome in the fourth.
In car racing, a car can be two miles ahead of the second place car and lose his entire lead because some donkey that is not even in the running meets up with a cement wall.
Although, the myriad of yellow flags keeps the lead pack close and creates great finishes -- even if the rules have to be bent so the fans don't throw debris at Jeff Gordon when he wins the race under caution.
The last 10 laps were great. Even a non-sports fan can't help but get excited and do a little yelling at the TV. Believe it or not, I fell into this trap.
A few things happened during the race that could have a great affect on whether I decide to tune into the Auto Club 500 this Sunday.
The driver that I supported was Matt Kenseth. The reasons I chose the #17 car were documented last week. I decided that in order to enhance the experience of watching the race I made a small wager on the #17 car at 30-1. What better way to truly remember my virgin NASCAR experience than to take a nice sum of cash home with me.
What I didn't expect from Kenseth was that his car would blow up before lap 25. The race wasn't even 20 minutes old and I was trying to figure out how I was going to spend the next three hours.
My theory before the race started was that it is impossible to watch without some sort of rooting interest. So far, I had lost my driver and the car I wagered on and I found myself in the abyss that I feared relapsing into. In order to save myself, I made the executive decision to go to the backup car. As discussed last week, my backup car was none other than #24 car of Jeff Gordon.
After the Kenseth debacle I also decided to make a venue change. I began the race watching in glorious HDTV with my surround sound maxed out. I was pleased to see that FOX obliged my needs by having a segment where the talking heads shut holes and just listened to the power of the these machines. Those two minutes were almost worth the price of admission itself.
What the length of this race also offers is the vast opportunity to drink the beverage of choice. Since I made the venue change to the K-Ranch in search of other NASCAR fans, laps 50 through 150 offered me ample time to shake off some of the cobwebs. Definitely another plus for stock car racing.
Another bonus was that the bar was filled with Budweiser clad Junior fans. With copious amounts of booze and the brimming rivalry between Gordon and Junior fans I could foresee a possible confrontation.
As the laps ticked on I tried to get involved by paying attention to the strategies of certain teams. I came to the conclusion that there must be many different strategies, but viewing the race on TV isn't the easiest form to pick them up.
It is impossible to see on TV if a certain car is loose or if the driver is trying to conserve gas or if teammates are working together. If a driver has a pulled hamstring, you can tell he's not operating at 100 percent capacity. Loose cars look exactly like cars that aren't.
My inability to notice teammates helping each other move to the front stems from being a NASCAR novice. I have no idea who is friendly. And from what I was told at the bar, sometimes drivers work together even if they aren't on the same team. This really didn't make any sense to me, but the only correlation I could make was from the Tour de France, but that only occurs during breakaways not in the middle of the pack.
I also remember, back in the heyday of CART racing, the various teams had cars that looked similar. This obviously was a huge help to see who was working together. I realize that millions of dollars go into a sponsorships, but isn't there a way that team cars can be so marked in order for people like me can figure out that Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are actually teammates?
It was quite amusing that as crunch time approached there was a wreck every two laps, which dragged the race to a screeching halt. In baseball you can choke and make an error, in basketball you can choke and miss a shot, but in racing if you choke you take out half of the field.
The race ended in dramatic fashion, but there wasn't any question that Gordon might not have won if he didn't have the help of his teammate Jimmie Johnson. The roles could have been reversed if Junior hadn't lost his teammate Michael Waltrip a few laps earlier.
I don't pretend to be a physics professor, but something about the draft that Gordon used from Johnson to slingshot past Junior won him the race. I couldn't help but wonder if Johnson and Gordon weren't teammates, would the last lap have included a little bumpin' and rubbin?
As I gleefully cheered Gordon's win in the face of the many Budweiser drinking Junior fans I watched carefully to see if my wish would come true. Not only did it come true, but my boy Tony Stewart went completely out of his way to put a cherry on what had been a solid day.
He didn't punch anybody, but he did spin out Johnson with his car. If this were the real world Stewart wouldn't be eligible for a driver's license due to his insanity, although it is quite entertaining.
Overall, it was a fun day, and I guess that's the general idea of watching any sporting event. Without the drinking, gambling and taunting I am not sure if this sport has much to offer. But since I enjoy triumvirate of degeneracy I will give it another shot, but only on a track that is longer than the drive through at Taco Bell.
This Sunday's race is at California Motor Speedway's two-mile track, Kenseth is 12-1 and I need another excuse to have a few beverages on a Sunday and scream at the TV. This could possibly turn into a habit.
