Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! This week the Bristol Motor Speedway proved again why its events are the hottest ticket in motorsports, as 164,000 people saw a marathon race that tied the Winston Cup record for caution laps -- 20. It was wreck after wreck all night: The longest green flag run was 54 laps. It seemed like everybody who was anybody in NASCAR got wrecky before it was over. As long as the camera can still read the advertising on the hood, I guess a wreck is almost the same as a good finish for the sponsor at a big TV race like Bristol.

But if Bristol had the look of a demolition derby, its conclusion had the broken heart of a tragic opera. Kurt Busch won after a week that saw him first portrayed as a victim, then as an instigator, and finally as someone who would stop at nothing to grasp the glittering, terrible prize. Kurt was booed at the driver introductions; he pulled off a bump-and-run on Casey Mears; then he spun Sterling Marlin into the wall, after which he was officially warned he'd be in the penalty box if anything else happened involving his nose and anyone else's tail.

You know they say the eyes don't lie. When Kurt pulled into the winner's circle Saturday before a largely silent crowd, his face was absolutely wracked with guilt, and shame, and dread. He looked like a kid who had been left in charge of something treasured, and let it fall into utter ruin. He looked like he would have rather been almost anywhere else, doing practically anything else, but up on that stage trying to manufacture joy at his win. Still desperately struggling to put on some type of game face, Kurt staggered through an apology to Marlin -- which brought a hail of ugly boos from the stands.

Since it was the Sharpie 500, and Kurt drives for Rubbermaid Sharpie, it should have been a golden night for him. Instead, it was like watching Macbeth trying to celebrate at the big banquet -- all the while recoiling from a horrifying ghost that only he can see. I would not have traded places with that man, no way. Kevin Harvick, whom Kurt passed for the lead and the race at lap 379, said afterwards on TV that the Kurt was "learning what being a butthole will get you." More on the Kurt/Jimmy wars below, including comments from a furious reader who thinks I'm fat and had better stay out of Florida.

This week's National Anthem was served up by "Mercy Me and Motor Racing Outreach," which seemed to be made up of the little kids of the drivers; apparently this is a traditional opening event at Bristol, and they were absolutely adorable.

This race lasted for nearly four solid hours, and since I was at a gorgeous pool dinner party (thanks Janet and Sue!) I confess that I was not able to note every move on the track. I could almost say about anybody there, "Oh, he wrecked but he's fine." Sexy Ryan Newman got spun around twice and still finished in 6th place. My boy Jamie McMurray started in 31st and battled all the way to 3rd by the end, even though he got caught up in one of the biggest wrecks of the night! Go Jamie! You so rule!

Speaking of cutie, have ya'll seen Larry Foyt who drives that #50 car? Let me tell you, he could be a serious contender for our DeVine 91/2 fantasy team -- very smooth, very deluxe.

The worst paint scheme of the night was on Elliot Sadler's #38: It advertised Combos, one of those awful snacks with something else injected up into the inside of it. Dixie was fully appalled, and our friend Kat Kelly confessed that she had tried to eat a Combos one time, and "couldn't believe they called it food!"

It was another great week for our DeVine 9/12 fantasy team: We got 6 in the top 10 (including 1-2-3-4) and we're still holding down 7 of the top 10 points spots. Go team!

BUSCH VS. SPENCER: ROUND 2

If we had a "Melrose Place" style announcer at Gaytona.com, he would now gravely intone, "Previously, on Winston Cup..." Heading into Bristol, the repercussions from Jimmy Spencer's attack on Kurt Busch dominated the headlines. Y'all will remember that last week after the Michigan 400, Kurt ran out of gas right in front of Jimmy Spencer's hauler, and Jimmy hit Kurt's car, and then punched Kurt in the face, when Kurt was still inside his car. Jimmy was suspended for a week and fined $25,000, and Kurt was put on probation.

Several readers took issue with my harsh remarks against Spencer.

Mike from The Classic City wrote, "As for Kirk and Jimmy. I'm not fond of Jimmy, but I dislike Kirk a lot. From what I've seen and heard in the media it sounds like a little guy with a BIG mouth needed to be put in his place. ...You got your wish with Kirk's win last night at Bristol, but I was with the fans there that BOOOOed. Love it when Harvick called him "Rubberhead.'"

JB wrote, "didn't know there were any gay nascar fans. kurt deserved the ass whippin."

And Big Fist responded to the item, which I entitled "Lardass Wales on Little Dude," by writing, "You look like quite the lardass yourself. Maybe you should turn that big ass north on 95 and not come back to Florida. Dumbass."

Now really, that's just too much. I work hard to remain reasonably trim and certainly do not have a "big ass." And I'll come to Florida whenever I damn well please!

All that said, I want to explain that I write this column on Monday nights and don't add anything to it until the next Monday. Last week's column was written before it was revealed that Kurt's radio chatter showed he was trying to mess with Jimmy. We also know now that Kurt was pretty hot with Jimmy right at the scene of the incident. Because most sources have been giving the censored version of Kurt's cuss-out, I'll print the whole bit, as reported on www.thatsracin.com. After Spencer said, "get out of that car," Kurt said:

"You better, you better, you better. What ya got? You have the run of your life and you think you got something. One day out of the year, that's 365. Do something. Just fucking do something. You'll fucking die."

Now the first thing I learn from this is: When you feel all fired up and ready to cuss somebody out -- you had better not, because what you say will probably sound like chattering mad monkey gibberish, just as Kurt's remarks do. And the second thing is that Kurt was talking like somebody who was looking for a fight.

But in the final analysis, it's still wrong when a big guy beats up a little guy who's strapped inside a non-running racecar. You can really hurt people hitting them in the head. Years ago as a reporter, I covered the story of a high school boy who hit another teen in the back of the head, just one time, getting off the bus. The boy went home and died, and the kid who did it will be in the Georiga penetinetiary for a long, long time.

So I acknowledge to Spencer's fans (all three of y'all) that he was provoked, but I insist he was way out of line to clobber Kurt. A little shoving and snapping, maybe some wig-snatching, OK, but let's don't go crazy boys, OK?

NASCAR IN THE NEWS

For some reason, the normally private France family of NASCAR has been doing some very entertaining interviews lately. The New Yorker ran a huge piece on NASCAR in which the writer interviewed Mr. Bill Jr. while he was checked in at the Daytona Beach hospital under the pseudonym Bob Wayne (John's brother), and Bill's wife Betty Jane (!!!) at their waterfront home. Betty Jane, we learn, "wore two diamond rings that were only slightly smaller than the knob on a stick shift." A silver plaque bears the clan's secret to togetherness: "Money isn't everything, but it does tend to keep the children in touch."

And in a USA Today interview, Bill revealed the following about his mother, Anne B.: "She wouldn't accept credit cards for ticket sales. It wasn't that she didn't trust the credit card companies... Her analogy was that going to an auto race should be done with discretionary cash. And if you don't have the cash, you shouldn't come. You should stay home and pay your electric bills and your essentials." What a smart lady!

HOT HOT GAY DRIVE-IN ACTION!!!!

I'm a big supporter of drive-in movies. Back in the 80s, Atlanta had three drive-ins; now we just have one, the fabulous Starlight (www.starlightdrivein.com -- check out the 411 on their big festival this weekend), and I try to visit it every chance I get. Well, last week Dixie and I organized a drive-in night to amuse DJ Tennessee, who was visiting from NYC. What a big time we had -- and what gay movies we saw!

The double feature we chose was "American Wedding" and "2 Fast 2 Furious". The wedding pic is packed to the cap with gay jokes: cute Jason Biggs shaves his balls before his wedding, and totally adorable Seann William Scott is hilarious as Steve Stifler, the mack daddy of all horndogs, who does a fierce "Zoolander"-style walk-off against a gay guy in a gay bar. Then the Stiff-meister becomes best buds with the gay guy, and gets him to pimp some role-playing hoochies for the big bachelor party! It's all off the hook!

Things got even gayer in "2F2F." The main stars -- Paul Walker and Tyrese -- have a huge fight where they wrap their legs around each other; they bicker all the time like an old married couple ("Hater!"); and finally Tyrese says that it's so hot and humid in Miami that he "can't wear no drawers" and Paul confesses that he has the same problem! Well, by this time we were all taking off our drawers, and it got wicked bad after that. This movie has a lot for gay race fans to enjoy; just head for snacky town during the yucky "interrogation" scene.

If you are lucky enough to have a drive-in near you, I hope you are supporting it. These wacky party spots are real American treasures, and they need us to pay the rent. Pack up your cooler, pick up some pals, and head to the drive-in tonight!

This week we go deep, deep in Dixie to pay a call, a kind of social call, on the Lady in Black. Meet me at the Track Bar for the Southern 500 in Darlington, y'all! Let's sing some of them good ole work songs to keep our spirits up til Sunday! (Think of Joan Plowright's song in "Bringing Down the House: "Mama! Is Massa going to sell us in the morning?")