Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! This week, NASCAR took us up to New York state, where rain threatened, but yeah, wet wasn't the hilly and curvy road course at Watkins Glen. It was the second road race of the season; Robby Gordon has taken both of them; and on both race days I was lounging and luxuriating at the Florida beach homes of delightful friends! (Thanks for everything, Chandler! ) Gosh, what are the odds?

This week, we got a sweet, non-political prayer from a Motor Racing Outreach preacher -- that was nice and entirely appropriate. Bluegrass Vocalist of the Year Rhonda Vincent served up the National Anthem, and ran it out right as war planes roared over! (But she held onto a banjo or some such that she never played. Do you find it distracting when people do that?) When she got to the part about the rockets, though, they had some fireworks that sure enough sounded like automatic weapons to me -- and I live in Atlanta, so I know, OK? The NBC announcers said they were badly scared by both the fireworks and the planes!

Speaking of the announcers, one of them said Sunday we would know about something soon, because "one of our crack pit reporters will find out for us." Did y'all know there was a crack pit at Watkins Glen? I guess they had to put one in to get people to make the trip up from the city!

Perhaps reacting to the fact that most NASCAR fans hate road racing and the one in California was SO boring, the boys got this one off to a smacking good start. Jeff Gordon was on the pole but quickly got spun by Greg Biffle. Everyone immediately hollered "revenge!" remembering how cussin' mad Greg was about not getting a lap back from Gordon at New Hampshire. Greg did get on the radio and say he felt "terrible" about it -- yeah, sending Gordon from 1st back to 42nd on the 1st lap, I'm sure he was all tore up!

This week's race was sponsored by Sirius, and they had their sign with the little dog about every 16 inches along the race track. But their driver, Jimmy Spencer, is known to hate road racing, and sure enough he spun out towards the end.

There was quite a huge fire in Kevin Harvick's pit stall when some spilled gasoline made contact with a fire inside the rear brakes. The fire roared up -- and the #29 roared off! Kevin was fine, and back at the pit, the fire got put out pretty quickly. Still, it looked really, really hot, just like Kevin does everyday of the week.

Poor Christian Fittipaldi, driving the car with the "100 Years of Yankees" paint scheme (the team, you know). He got spun out by Steve Park. Wrecky, wrecky Steve Park! And some of y'all want to put him on the team!

On the way to victory lane, Robby Gordon spun out Boris Said. The other thing I hate about road racing is -- who are these new people? Who are their people? Where did they come from? What kind of race is it when oval drivers have to race against these road drivers? Why not just have ambulances racing bookmobiles, and be done with it?

Tragic Jeffy! As if getting spun in lap 1 were not enough, after he got back to the front he got wrecked out again when he ran out of gas and Kevin ran up on him. Jeff finished down at 33rd, but he's still hanging onto 3rd in the points, though.

This week, the DeVine 91/2 had five in the top 10, and eight in the top 13. We're holding steady with seven in the top 10 in Winston points, and Tony Stewart's trying to scratch Robby Gordon out of the 10th spot to make it eight!

HE OUGHT TO KNOW

Ryan Newman, who has given us some of the most spectacular wrecks of the season, bitched out NASCAR after it took safety crews more than a minute to come help him after his car flipped up on its side in a practice round crash. Ryan charged that the safety crew "didn't have a clue what to do" to get him out. Come on y'all! Take care of these guys! (Jeff Gordon also complained, saying the ambulance taking him to the Infield Care Center got stuck in traffic! Well, that was post-race traffic, and y'all know how bad everybody wants to get home afterward.)

COLOR MY WHIRL

The excellent racing site www.thatsracin.com is reporting that when it takes over as title sponsor next year, Nextel will abandon Winston's red and white color scheme for a yellow and black scheme. The Nextel company will also drop its current maroon scheme and go with the yellow and black. I don't know about that, especially for the associated apparel. Yellow is not the most slenderizing color, if you know what I mean.

IT'S BOOTIE, BABY!

Thanks Jenny, for letting us know about the chat group devoted to Bootie Barker, the foxy crew chief for Dave Blaney in the #77 car. Bootie is a cool dude -- y'all check it out!

That's it for now, racing buds and babes. This weekend, we stay up Nawth for the Michigan 400. Let's all get together at the Track Bar, and experience it as a family, why don't we?