Welcome back, folks! I’d love to be able to tell you that I was taking a hiatus to allow more new shows into the queue, but the truth is that I grew lazy with sloth. But never fear, because we are once again back to explore all the shows that I’ve never before seen. And away we go!
This week’s column is dedicated to a friend, so taken aback by my lack of familiarity with “America’s Sport,” that she somehow cornered me into a choice between watching the Daytona 500 or The Bachelor. What kind of sorceress could have tricked me so?
Let me tell you, she was not amused by my asking if it was 200 laps long (I got her there — it is not 500 laps! And you call yourself a fan…); whether Ricky Bobby’s chances were looking good (apparently fictional characters do not compete in this race); or whether the horses get tired running after the bunny so many times (I’ll let you figure that one out on your own). So I promised her that I’d sit down and watch the big race … and I did. Sort of.
Okay, so I only watched the first hour (which is all she asked me to do, I promise). But in that hour I got to see a quarter of the big race (it being only 200 laps and all), which I imagine is a pretty accurate representation of what the entirety would have given me. We had wrecks, we had leader changes … and we had a giant pack of cars playing 195 mile an hour bumper cars around a track, at car lengths that no driving instructor would have approved.
First of all, the wide angle sight of the track, the stands, and the cars, was pretty cool. The sheer size of Daytona … I mean, I guess it has to be that large in order to accommodate all those cars traveling 500 miles (that’s the 500!) in their total race around the track.
In just the first few minutes Daytona witnessed its first wreck of the night, wiping out big name drivers like Jimmy Johnson, Trevor Bayne, and Danica Patrick. Through the technological advances of the in-car camera we got to experience what the crash was like for some of the drivers, and I have to say that, unlike in football when I could never imagine myself in the players’ shoes, as someone who drives a car it wasn’t very pleasant to “experience” a wreck. With the amount of times we sat through the crash in replay, you’d think there’s an attraction to the sensationalism, but I for one wasn’t intrigued.
I did find it interesting that most of the wrecked cars weren’t actually out for the night. Those pit crews are like mechanic shops on high speed, racing to put cars back together in time to get their drivers back out on the track. The use of the phrase “start to her race” when the commentators were discussing Patrick’s situation made it clear that dismantling half her car would only somewhat delay her in the race. That’s cool.
So, overall impression? When the focus is not on the cars going round and round, Daytona’s not a bad way to spend an evening. My friend was right in saying that strategizing and teamwork is a key component of the race, and I enjoyed that part a lot. I don’t know that the sport is for me, but should my dial happen upon another Sprint Cup Series race … I don’t know; maybe I stay tuned for a minute or two and watch.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 28, 2012 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
