"THIS IS BETTY JACK DEVINE, AND I APPROVED THIS MESSAGE:"
Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! Congratulation to the DeVine 91/2's own Ryan Newman, who grabbed his first Cup victory in 20 races at Michigan on Sunday. This ended a frustrating 20-race drought for Ryan that vexingly followed his eight victories in 2003. That was great -- unlike seeing the points lead leave our little fantasy team for the first time this year! Dale Jr. is now seven points behind new leader Jimmie Johnson, who finished fourth, claiming the prize after weeks of stalking Jr., who finished 21st. This week, we had five guys in the top 10, including hard-racing Mikey, and we've got eight guys in the top 10 in points. The guys on our team who led laps on Sunday were Ryan, Elliott, Matt and Jeff (who also took the bonus for leading the most, though you wouldn't know it from his 38th place finish, after starting on the pole!).
Going into Michigan, of course, it was all about the $25,000 fine NASCAR slapped on Kevin and Matt after they showed out last week at Pocono (they're also on probation until August), and of course about NASCAR's frantic scramble to get aholt of its scoring and the sorry lack of green-flag finishes.
There were some snippy pre-race "I Didn't Do It" shots from Kevin; Matt pretty much admitted he'd acted like a fool, but implied that stuff goes on that we don't know about. Otherwise, the #17/#29 story was pretty much over after the green flag dropped -- neither of these guys is stupid enough to want to piss off the money-men who are backing those rip-roaring rides.
But NASCAR continued to have problems keeping things moving and scored, and their prohibition against racing back to the caution -- which is sensible all race long but insane when the checkers are waving -- cost us the chance to see what could have been one of the most astonishing finishes in NASCAR history! In the broadcast booth, DW reacted to the yellow flag that ended Kasey's throbbing charge with a string of country-lad near-cusswords.
Kurt Busch was the defending race champ. During FOX's always-disturbing "10 Laps With" segment, Kurt revealed himself to be a Republican, which Dale Jr. has also previously done. This would be sad, except that I believe the Party of Satan is controlling so much of what we read and see that they could easily be forcing guys to avow their fealty in order to stay on top. And you know that FOX would go right along with it. Don't forget the many Satan/FOX connections "The Simpsons" have shown us over the years!
A Catholic priest brought a nice invocation. Elizabeth Fornal served the National Anthem. She experienced some problems placing and holding some of her notes, but it was obvious she was getting a mighty stretch signal from the director. Indeed, she did finish just as the war jets swept over the crowd of 150,000, all of whom I imagine were quite drunk -- hey, y'all NASCAR fans up around Motown!
After the announcers got through bragging on Ford and saying how this was a "Ford track," Mark Martin's Ford tore up on the first lap, sending him to the garage for a new transmission and a chance to come back later 18 laps down and get in the way a lot. (Being a "Ford Track" must mean that a speedway somehow favors cars that are noisy, quirky, swervy and else-wise hard to drive.)
Straightaway, Robbie Gordon got into the back of Bredan Gaughan, who had lifted a tad; this was the first caution, at lap 2. At lap 22, Ryan came in under green for an unscheduled stop, as his water was too hot because a hot dog wrapper got stuck on this grill.
Caution 2 came out at lap 34 -- "that's Caution Debris folks, she's here all week, shows at 10 and midnight." At lap 58, Jamie passed Kevin for 6th -- go Jamie! At lap 60, Jeff Gordon led off green-flag stops. Jeff was back out -- then Jeff was blowed up! The #24, who still took the bonus for most laps, collected its third DNF of the year. The next caution, at lap 116, fell for Jamie! The #42 car, which had been having another most excellent day, blew up. Always the gentle, sunny optimist, Jamie said in his interview that this was only the second engine the team had lost this year "so that's not too bad."
Speaking of Jamie, he and his dad Jim were among the fathers and sons of NASCAR who stopped by Trackside on Speed. There was some discussion about how Jamie's golfcart at the racetracks is "pimped out" and "has curtains." Honey, this I gotta see!
Now, Jamie's bad luck was Kasey's good, as the #9 car -- sporting a fun new bright green paint scheme for Mountain Dew -- got the lucky dog pass. The 5th caution, at lap 151, was for debris; the 6th, at lap 159, was for the meltdown of Ricky Craven's car. Sterling Marlin continued to lead. The 7th caution was for Joe Nemechek's failed engine, giving us a restart with 23 to go. Dale Jarrett, so very hungry for champagne and victory caps, was leading and complaining on the radio that the laps-down cars of Mears and Martin were getting in his way.
As the laps wound down, Ryan took it from Jarrett, who took it back, then gave it up again. The madly charging Dodge of Kasey Kahne took 2nd from Jarrett and was coming like a NASA rocket, shooting off the corners with the determination of a man who really believes he can whip that car just long enough to get this win, when the final caution fell on the white flag lap. Under the current rules, there's no racing back to the checkers even on the last lap, "freezing" the field and giving Ryan the victory.
Now granted, it would have taken a super-size miracle for sure for Kasey to have taken it from Ryan, but girls can you imagine if he had? It would truly have ranked with the best finishes ever.
IT'S ON, Y'ALL!
Summertime really is the most fun time of the year, and whatever it is you do, I hope you can arrange things to give yourself the maximum amount of time pursuing fun stuff. Don't let work eat your fun! Speaking of fun, head out to your local Pride this weekend, all you gay NASCAR fans! Here in Atlanta, it's always amazing to see how many folks turn out for Pride, and how many different types of people there are in the gay tribe. We need to get aholt of the idea that UNITY around the concept of DIVERSITY can one day grant us SUPER-POWERS.
And toward that end, we've got to BEAT BUSH! Y'all know I was for Dean, but now I am for Kerry, and I want you to be for Kerry too. E-mail Kerry with the link on this page and let him know you want him to pick a real Democrat for VP, not someone who will drag the election down. Go Edwards for VP, I say! But get involved -- get on the e-mail list and let the campaign hear from you.
Summer memories are so important -- You want to be able to wear that tank-top that says "Summer 2004: I stayed tore up, got nekkid, had a million laughs AND helped BEAT BUSH to save the USA!"
That's it for this week, racing buds and babes! Next week we're at the Sonoma road course -- it's hard to get too excited about these silly road courses, but we'll get some kind of report out for you, between the Pride events and all the parties and going to the pool and what all!
Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar, y'all!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@bellsouth.net
