Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! Congratulations to Saturday's winner, Kurt Busch. Our boys did pretty well at Phoenix: We had four guys in the top 10 (Mikey, Jr., Brian and Carl) plus Elliott in 11th and Jeff in 12th. In the points, we've got five in the top 10. If the regular season were to end right now -- trust me Blanche, it ain't gonna -- we would have eight guys eligible for the Chase.
This was the first Cup race under the new lights in Phoenix, and 100,000 fans turned out to see it live. Dale Jarrett and Elliott's cars were using M&Ms to push the new Star Wars movie. Dale's car said "Go to the light side" and Elliott's said -- on the car's tail, mind you -- "Go to the Dark Side." Dude, are you asking me out on a date or something?
Rain delayed the race's start, but once that was over, it was smooth sailing. The invocation was delivered by the speedway chaplain, Ken Bowers. Now we long ago got used to everything in NASCAR having ads all over it, but preachers, let's leave the ads out of the prayer. Y'all do not need to be reeling off the sponsors when invoking the Almighty. This preacher was sort of like, "Lord bless the Goody's Coca-Cola Disneyland Cap'n Crunch Hello Kitty Race on this beautiful Red Lobster day..." or some such. Really, it was a bit much. Daniel Rodriguez, famous for his post-911 renderings of patriotic standards and identified on his Web site as "America's Beloved Tenor," presented the National Anthem. If there was a flyover, we didn't see it. "Hey's where's my flyover at, anyway?"
Kurt Busch bested pole sitter Jeff Gordon on the first lap, setting the tone for the race to come. The always-wreckful Jason Leffler brought out the first caution, at lap 12, by going for a spin. Boy does this guy need a break. There was another caution at lap 67 for a piece of hot rubber, look out y'all, it's hot!
Mikey really carried the flag for our team Saturday along with our bad boy Brian Vickers who led the race for 50 laps. By lap 123, Mikey had climbed to 3rd. Another caution debris occurred at lap 132, and a slow stop sent Mikey back to 7th. At lap 167, Matt Kenseth cut a tire and hit the wall, bringing out the caution. The fifth caution was at lap 183 for a spin by Kyle Busch. Carl Edwards took a spin at lap 179 but drove through it like an ace and there was no caution. The next caution, at lap 190, was for debris.
Then on lap 206 there was a big wreck in turn 3. Jimmie Johnson started it by bumping Tony Stewart -- another one of those home improvement smack-fests. Also in it were Dave Blaney, Ricky Rudd, Rusty Wallace and Kenny Schrader. Casey Mears crashed at lap 221. Mikey, who had led for a while on older tires, handed it off to Jeff Gordon. Another caution waved at lap 238 for a wreck with Kenny Schrader, Scott Wimmer and Travis Kvapil. At lap 269, Kurt took the lead from Mikey and that's the way it wrapped up, with a late-race crash by Ryan Newman not producing another caution.
SEXIEST DRIVER POLL!
I just checked out FOX's sexiest driver poll, and Jamie is beating Kurt by 81% to 19%! Go Jamie! Dixie heard the annoucers say that Jr.'s people had asked their fans to vote for Casey Mears over Kasey Khane, because they were afraid Jr. could not whup Kasey! Let's keep up with this and hope one of our boys comes out on top!
LIQUOR IN FRONT, POKER IN BACK!
Seems like the whole country has gone nuts for Texas Hold 'em, and NASCAR is no exception. Check out Michael Waltrip's Celebrity Poker Tournament Thursday night at 9 on Speed. It's fun to see these lords of the speedway clash at the poker table. Someone, however, needs to tell Mikey to lose that dude-ranch Western outfit -- it's just not working. If you are new to Hold 'em and are interested, there are lots of places you can go on the Web to learn to play. Dixie and I recently went to a poker night at the home of our friends Dana and Dan -- the pictures tell the whole crazy story -- check them out at my sista site bettyjack.com!
That's it for this week friends. Next week we'll get together for the hot and heavy action at Talladega! Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@gaytona.com
