"THIS IS BETTY JACK DEVINE, AND I APPROVED THIS MESSAGE:"
Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! What a great day to be a Mark Martin fan! Mark got his 34th Cup victory in a race that was certainly the wildest thing of the year so far! Some of y'all have been on me to kick Mark off the team -- well, I say, Sunday proved me right in keeping him on! Don't forget -- this dude was 2nd in Cup points in 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002! Then again, 2002 was the last time he won: at the Coke 600. It's great to see these guys who've been around a while get back in Victory Lane. It definitely turned into one of those "age before beauty" things as Mark grabbed the win that Kasey lost. Thus endeth the 72-race drought of Sir Mark of Martin, Knight of Viagra. It's great, because he's been running hard all year... I knew he "wood"... I mean, he's been coming, right?... Let me know if I left anything out.
At Dover, the DeVine 91/2 fantasy team put five guys in the top 10. In the points, we've got eight guys in the top 10. Four guys would be out the of the season-ending "chase" if that were to happen now. But you know what? It's not gonna.
At qualifying Friday, it was all about "Heyyy, Jeremy!" as the handsome driver of the #19 Dodge shattered the track's previous qualifying record! Go Jeremy! Even though this sexy country hunk is not on the team, well, a girl can dream, no?
There was other drama Friday when Mikey crashed on his second lap. The car change forced him to the rear of the field. "I don't know what happened," he said. "I just lost it." Poor, poor Mikey! He's got to be worried about that shocking talk this week about his future -- or not! -- with DEI!
Courtesy of our track pals Amy and Amanda, on Sunday we got to experience the Miracle of NASCAR on a TV as big as a barn-door! (What a time we had! Thanks y'all!) We'd just come from brunching at our favorite, Atlanta's Radial Cafe, and, having gotten the starting time wrong, missed the opening ceremonies. D'oh! My bad. I heard Clay Aiken sang the National Anthem.
Saturday's Busch race got delayed six hours, then pushed to Monday, and Sunday's race took place under a most un-Chamber-of-Commerce-type sky. The drivers did not get to have practice, so there was a safety caution at 30 laps, which slowed things up since there had already been a real caution for a Casey Mears crash. After restart at lap 38, Kurt Busch got into Elliott Sadler, who got into Brendan Gaughan -- and Jamie McMurray just drove under the wreck with the skill of a rocket captain! It was amazing. Soon Tony Stewart was leading, and in lap 99 he put Baby E a lap down! Ouch mama! Tony took off again after a Caution Debris yellow, and opened up a big lead. But it was time for a return visit by handsome pole-sitter Jeremy Mayfield, and Tony let him drive up front for a while. Then at lap 158, leader Tony was chasing a bunch of cars who were trying not to get lapped when there was a wreck as Terry Labonte got into the back of Joe Nemechek.
Long about this time, Dixie said, "It's not a good year for a Ford." And Amy said, "It's NEVER a good year for a Ford!" Isn't that the truth? I don't want a Ford, no thank you, sir!
There was great excitement when Kasey passed Jimmie Johnson for 2nd at lap 203. By this time, keep in mind, Jimmie was the scoring as the points leader. The caution came out again when Jeff Gordon's car banged into the wall. Y'all, the TV showed people standing up and cheering! One of the announcers said, "I fail to understand why so many people cheer for Jeff Gordon's misfortunes." And this was in Dover, where Dupont is headquartered! Well, I never!
At lap 249, Kasey again took 2nd from Jimmie. After another number by Miss Caution Debris, there was a long green-flag run, and even green-flag pit stops. At lap 321, there was a caution as Ryan hit the commitment cones (we call those "husbands" -- see: Falcon, "Flashpoint") and spun around. Ryan also ran out of gas and had to be pushed in by other racecars. NASCAR penalized Ryan a lap for running a stop sign, but he maintained that the penalty they were actually assessing was unfair because he was leading the race, and so he should have been sent back to the same lap as the lead-lap guys, not the lap-down guys. A giant conflamma ensued in the #12's pit as his crew chief Matt Borland argued his case to NASCAR. It did sort of turn into the OJ Trial of caution disputes for a minute. Anybody got an egg timer?
There was a restart with 55 to go, then a HUGE pile-up when the #19 was leading. It looked to have been started by Dave Blaney passing too close to Mikey, which got Dave himself loose and wonky, so that it looked like half the cars on the racetrack were caught up in it, including #48, #97, #40, #19, and #42. Not in the wreck was Mikey, which helped him get to 6th at the end. Jimmie, who saw his stab at the points lead shrink from -5 in the morning to -98 Sunday night, blamed "Stupid people out there not using their heads," in particular guys who were three to five laps down and racing three-wide. Dave said he didn't think it was his fault. I like Dave Blaney so much -- I hope he wins some. But he did start this red-flag wreck, which ironically finished off only his own car and JJ's.
While other cars pitted, Kasey stayed out, and we had big hopes for his first Cup victory. "Drive it like you stole it!" Darryl Waltrip cheerfully advised. But after a restart with 21 to go, Kasey saw his hopes go down in a pool of oil dropped by Casey Mears (remember him? He was in the day's first wreck and would soon to finish 44 laps down). This was hard on Kasey and all his fans! Matt Kenseth also wrecked because of the oil, and he was very vocal in his anger about it. At this point, we were again under red as the officials cleaned the track. In the final laps, Mark Martin took over Kasey's ruined lead and drove on to victory. In a nice class move, Tony came running over and hugged on Mark.
STOP BEING MEAN TO MIKEY!
On Friday afternoon, while driving in a rapid but orderly fashion away from the workplace, I first heard, on Eagle 106.7 (Atlanta's racing station), all this stuff about Mikey and DEI. What in the world?
Jr. said that Mikey "probably would like to end his career at DEI but the chances of that happening I wouldn't say are 100 percent right now. He's going to have to run good, that team is going to have to run good. It's all fair. This is a business. We hug each other and we're buddies and we do all of those things that friends do. But when you get inside the garage area everybody knows it's a business. Michael has to do what he can to help himself. He owns a racecar, he knows what it's all about." Meeee-YOW! This to me sounds like either Jr. was having a bad day, or Teresa Earnhardt is working everyone's gay hole 24/7 to get rid of Mikey NOW!
Come on, DEI! Mikey has been doing lots better lately -- or at least he was until y'all freaked him out and made him crash his car at qualifying! There's nobody else like Mikey. Get off his back! (We want on!)
Really, though, I blame Bush for this, and all the rest of our troubles. Even a casual observer can see that the extreme competition for money and sponsors in the current sorry economy is making it harder to fill the track with good teams and cars.
That's it for this week friends. We'll see you next week for Pocono -- everybody get drunk, get nekkid!
Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@bellsouth.net
