Georgia's Biggest Party - The Atlanta 500
2008 NASCAR SEASON WRAPUPPREVIOUSLY ON TRACK YACK
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Amy and AJ are Gaytona.com's #1 buds, and again this race honored us with their extraordinary hospitality!Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! What a time we had last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway! The biggest and best news of the weekend was the weather. AMS was way due for a break on the weather, and it definitely got one this time. In March 2008, Atlanta saw great weather the weekend before the race, but on race weekend it was freezing and it actually snowed on Saturday. Then the very next weekend was lovely again. But this year, Atlanta had a big snowstorm the Sunday before the race... and the whole weekend after the race we got bone-chilling rain... but race weekend was FABULOUS! You could practically hear the huge sigh of relief that arose from the AMS staff when the great forecast looked "locked in." The beautiful Sunday sent many race fans to work Monday sporting a bit of a sunburn -- and I was one of them! (Honey, don't even get me started on all the hot raceboys who switched teams from "shirts" to "skins" as the afternoon heated up!) 
Here's frequent Gaytona.com contributor Big Dave, basking in the Georgia sun at Atlanta Motor Speedway!Our favorite moment in SpeedTV's coverage Friday night came when Larry Mac excitedly said Brian Vickers might lay down some good laps because "he is a qualifying little animal." (Well woof honey, I'm an animal-lover for sure! Can you think of anything cuter than a qualifying little animal?) It was terrific Friday to see Mark Martin take the pole for the first time 2001. In his post-run interviews, Mark was shaking all over like a soaked kitten, practically apologizing and seemingly in disbelief about having turned the fastest lap. In other words, classic MM. Saturday gave us a bit of a fright, as the morning was anything but sunny. The air was wet, and low clouds hung over town. But just about Truck race time, the sun tore through and the great weather we'd hoped for arrive. The Truck race had many exciting moments, and there seemed to be hope until the last that someone other than Kyle Busch would win. By now you know the outcome of Sunday's event: Kurt Busch started on the outside pole, led 234 of the 330 laps, and won. Probably the most exciting action of the day occurred right in front of us, when Bill Elliott ran into the spinning Sam Hornish Jr. in Turns 1-2. We had a great view of that one from the trailertop. A bit later, on lap 216, Mark Martin ran over something and crashed in the same spot. I had climbed down and was walking around when that one happened, but I heard and felt it. 
During a drowsy part of the race, there was quite a lot of excitement in Turn 2 when this replica of Richard Petty's famous ride rolled up!During the race and after, much attention was paid to attendance and how it had been affected by the economic crisis. There was no disguising the large expanses of bare steel in the frontstretch stands -- particularly in the higher, more desirable sections. Even so, AMS President Ed Clark understandably expressed a "thank goodness it wasn't worse" reaction in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Still, he's having to answer persistent questions about whether AMS could lose a race -- perhaps as early as next year. Ed said no, because there are so many big corporations in metro Atlanta which are NASCAR sponsors that Atlanta will always be a big market for NASCAR. All the fans in Atlanta and the Deep South certainly hope Ed is right. But there is no denying that this region is hurting terribly, and if you're having trouble keeping your lights from getting cut off, you're not likely to count out a big stack of Benjamins for the whole famn damily to spend the weekend at the speedway. Right next door in my native South Crazyland, the situation is generating Dickensian news stories about desperate unemployed people going tearfully from one charity to the next, seeking assistance in vain, while Gov. Mark "Mugabe" Sanford postures and poses about turning down the federal stimulus money. (This of course has nothing to do with what South Crazylandians need and everything to do with Sanford's maniac plan to run for president. Could anything be more laughable? What's his campaign slogan going to be? "South Carolina -- 1st State to Live Like the 3rd World"?) Anyway, enough about all that, but my point is that times down here are tough, and until they get better, NASCAR and a lot of other entertainments are going to have to wait and see what -- if anything -- is left over after all us Betty Jack Sixpacks and Dixie Housecoats have paid all the rest of our bills. 
Get a load of this version of the Carl Edwards machine! The tires on this contraption were actually five feet high! A phalanx of golf carts had to clear the way for it when they fired it up for a cruise around the infield.Special thanks this week to Amy and AJ, Gaytona.com's #1 fans and our super hosts in their luxurious trailer in Turn 2! And thanks to Marcy Scott and all at AMS for their hospitality and for treating their fans like kings and queens! Friends, enjoy this week's break, and get revved up for some beating and banging next weekend at Bristol! Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
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