Your 2017 Daytona 500 Open Thread

My father-in-law is a big NASCAR fan.  Which is weird since he’s in Southern California, (unless he’s been washed away over the last week; come to think of it we should probably call), by way of Connecticut, neither of which are areas particularly known for rickets, poor dentistry, shitty beer or limited genetic pools.  Not that any of those are things that you’d come across in the infield at, say, Talledega.

This picture has nothing to do with racing but:  Holy shit, are you fucking kidding me?

Anyhoo, as you may have noticed today is “Daytona Day!”, a day when kids below the Mason-Dixon line don’t go to school, (because it’s Sunday you see; what, did you think I was taking a cheap shot at Southern education statistics?  Not as bad as you might think!), folks take the plastic covers off the good sofa, chain the coon hounds outside the trailer, turn on the 32″ Philco and crack open whatever beer their favorite driver has plastered all over their cars and settle in for some 3-4 hours of watching guys drive really, really fast while turning left.

We here at DFO don’t seem to pay much attention to NASCAR, even though two of our more prolific contributors live in North Carolina and are probably legally obligated to at least have the TV turned on to the race, even if at least one of ’em is up on his roof trying to tune in an Everton FA Cup game replay and the other one is at an NC State baseball intrasquad scrimmage.  But to the great unwashed masses who follow the “sport” of auto-racing, (sorry, it’s not a sport if the main factor differentiating the winners from the losers is how good your equipment is), this is THE DAY.  Which is also weird, because it’s like if the NFL started with the Super Bowl, (which would have been great this year because Brady would’ve been suspended), or baseball started with the World Series.  It makes no sense.

After shitting all over NASCAR you’d think I wouldn’t be caught dead watching it but you would be wrong.  I will definitely check it out.  I will argue it’s not a sport.  I will make fun of a large percentage of the fan base.  I will say, with a straight face, that us Connecticut elitists would never stoop to such trivial entertainment, conveniently forgetting that friends of mine race on short tracks in this state, that going to races is really fun, (but bad for your hearing), and that one of NASCAR’s current bests, Joey Logano, is originally from Connecticut.

In a related note, have you ever noticed that the most extensively researched Wikipedia articles are inevitably about pro wrestlers or NASCAR drivers?  There’s a comment there about society, and it’s probably not good.

I’m not going to watch the entire race, and I’m going to be sober for (most of) the day, and I’ll drink better beer when it’s time to stop that, and I will go outside and my wife has made some promising comments about what’s going to happen when my daughter leaves for a concert later today, (although let’s face it, there will be longer pit stops in the race; that poor woman), but I will tune in.  Because no matter how stupid it seems on the surface or how redneck the fans are there is something fantastic about huge pieces of colorful metal storming around a corner at 140 mph and then revving to 180 on the straightaway while 8″ away from two other huge pieces of colorful metal doing the same thing.

YEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWWWW!