Daytona

And thus endeth the 50th running of the Daytona 500. I had to watch the race by myself because Vicky is in SoCal visiting her sister and friends right now. Which sucked, but I still had a great time. More importantly, a couple of things were reconfirmed to me today:

• Screw the nay-sayers, screw the snobs. Screw anybody who is trying to make fun of people who watch NASCAR races. This is great entertainment, just as good as any Superbowl or Oscars telecast. 43 cars going 190mph, 2-3 wide, often with less space between them than a deck of cards. Yeah, they’re going around in circles. Yes, it takes a long time and there’s quite a few commercials – but you don’t have to give the race your undivided attention for the entire time. And most importantly, there’s always something going on: cars bumping. Cars spinning out. Big crashes. Big crashes in which the cars slide across the finish line. On their roof.

  On fire.

  I don’t have a problem with the low-tech approach of it all. The cars might not be aerodynamic technological marvels, but compared to your average Formula 1 race, this is pure entertainment – uninterrupted racing action that stays unpredictable until the very end instead of two lead changes during the entire race (which usually happen during pit stops, no less). Who cares if it’s very “All-American” and somewhat Rednecky. It’s FUN.

• I’ve grown way too accustomed to our DVR. Record the race, watch it with time delay, skip through the commercials. Yeah, that’s a great comfort feature, skipping through all those commercials, theoretically gaining some time – but it turns yu into a babysitter for the TV. Way too much attention required, you never feel like you can just walk away from the broadcast for a while. “Oh no, it went to commercials! Quick, gotta skip forward!”
  Well, today I just watched the live broadcast while working on a 3D model on the comptrer. There were a lot of commercials I couldn’t skip. I just didn’t worry about it It’s kinda sad, but figuring out this stupid little fact was liberating.

Looking forward to the rest of the season, and especially the Sears Point race in June. Not only will it be in our backyard, the cars will even turn right from time to time. Take that, nay-sayers!