Vrooooom

Well, as mentioned previously, I attended the Daytona 500 last Sunday. The seats were junk, but I knew that ahead of time. Here's a pic from the pace lap.


Pace Lap, turn 4 

It was a cool experience . . . much different from races I have previously attended. The first several laps were rather cool. The cars would rumble by, this solid stream of 43 roaring V8s at full throttle for 2-3 seconds, then silence for 40-45 seconds, then r-u-u-u-u-m-m-m-m-ble again. But, honestly, the novelty wore off pretty quick.

I got stuck in a section full of a-holes, too. Now I know what you're thinking: This is NASCAR, the redneck sport . . . obviously there were a-holes there. This was worse than usual, though. The guy to my right was constantly trying to grab more room than he was entitled to in the bleacher seats, and doing so in a very obvious, rude and annoying manner. After I had slowly given up an entire seat's width (bleacher seating, mine was #33, and I had moved completely over to #34 by the time this happened) the guy actually had the audacity to say that I was crowding him and should move over. Fortunately, not long after this, Harvick was effectively taken out of the race, so they left (not surprisingly, this guy and his pal were Harvick fans, and as is typical of Harvick fans, they bail on the race the moment it's obvious he's not going to finish well).

Anywho, there was also a group of guys a couple rows behind me that were screaming throughout the race for someone to put Jeff Gordon into the wall. Now, I'm not a Gordon fan. I really hated to see him win on Sunday. I rather enjoy seeing him finish poorly. But despite the stereotype, most NASCAR fans do not want to see anyone get hurt. Wishing to see someone put into the wall, especially at a track where hitting the wall cost us fans the life of Dale Earnhardt just a few short years ago is, well, angering.

Well, despite the crappy seats, and the even crappier crowd, and the lameness of restrictor plate "racing", I had a grand old time. Don't think I'll ever pay for another Daytona race as I definitely prefer the 1-mile and under tracks, but it was still a worth-while experience. Actually, come to think of it, considering all the BS changes NASCAR has been making to things lately, it's probably the last Cup event I'll attend live ever again. But who knows--maybe they'll come to their senses some day and I'll go to more races again.