Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! Even though Biffle bagged another one Sunday, our guys raced hard and got four in the top 10. In the points, the DeVine 91/2 has four -- Elliott, Carl, Mark and Ryan -- in the top 10. They, plus Jamie at 374 points back, would be eligible for the Chase at this point. Dixie just predicted to me that Jeff, Mikey and Jr. are all going to get into the Chase somehow. I hope Kasey gets in too! We still have plenty of tricks. Up our sleeves.
Since it's just us girls here, we can admit that Sunday's race was a bit of a snooze, so my usual pages and pages of carefully coded notes are a bit shallow this week. Perhaps NASCAR put Michigan in the schedule to turn down the excitement level and get the crowd ready for Zzzonoma next week.
Father's Day provided the theme for the pre-show jabbering Sunday. When the ceremonies rolled around, Lonnie Clouse of Motor Racing Outreach brought the invocation. Karen Newman sang the National Anthem. Don't know Karen? Why, she's the voice of the Red Wings and tours with Bob Seger!
"Batman" was the race starter. I have heard that this movie sucks quite noisily.( I used to work with a queen who said she was Adam West's cousin and that he often visited relatives here in Atlanta. Of course, the queen also claimed that she inherited a huge fortune and mansion from this rich doctor and we found out later that she made it all up and the doctor was not even DEAD!)
Ryan was on the pole but Casey Mears led the 1st lap. Then after a while there were green flag pit stops. There was a crazy-clown wreck as Brian Vickers went nuts coming onto pit lane, getting sideways and smashing into the water barrels to bring out the first caution. After we went green again, Mark Martin led for a minute.
At lap 52, Mike Wallace's car broke and the caution came out. At the restart, Mark led and Jamie was in 8th. There were more green flag pit stops in the 90 laps. Jeff Gordon, who was having a handling problem, was in the pits a lot and was a lap down by 116. There were more green flag stops in the 130s. There was a caution for debris at lap 156.
At lap 168, Sterling Marlin "blew up big time," according to Larry Mac, and went spinning and caught on fire. Interesting, it had been announced earlier that David Stremme would drive the #40 for Ganassi next year. Maybe Sterling is just showing out. Do y'all remember how badly Ricky Craven drove after it was known that Hamilton Jr. would replace him in the Tide ride? Anyway, Biffle lead some more, then won.
THIS WEEK ON THE NAPA CHANNEL
Given how nap-tastic the race was Sunday, it's no wonder that we were riveted to the latest of the "NAPA Shopping Channel" commercials. In one, a strange-sounding man named "Todd" calls up to order a master cylinder for a Buick Park Avenue, and Jr. promises Todd he can spend the weekend with Mikey!
But, what's weird is that I've noticed that at least three of these commercials have featured replacement parts for Buicks. Well, after a couple of years of running great, my Park Avenue recently pitched a major fit. My mechanic replaced something (manifold, I think) with a factory part -- then found out that the factory part for this was defective on the original and is still defective, and an after-market company had solved the problem with their version of it! So maybe NAPA is sending subliminal messages to all us Buick owners, warning us that we'd be better off with NAPA parts! Ouch --that "GM feeling" ain't always pleasure, baby.
FORMER MRS. JACKSON TO PERFORM!
Hot on the heels of her ex-husband's acquittal, Lisa Marie Presley was announced as the pre-race entertainment for the Pepsi 400! The 30-minute concert will be featured on the NBC (yuck) broadcast. In her statement, Lisa Marie said "Although the Pepsi 400 will be the first NASCAR race that I've attended in person, I'm familiar with the exciting NASCAR culture." What parts, exactly? Climbing ladders drunk? Dodging empties lobbed from trailertops? Bud with your bacon? Anyway, we can't wait to see this super-tart pop up live at DB! (I'm planning to be in town -- anybody got the hookup for comps?)
That's it for this week, friends. Happy gay Pride! See you at Sonoma -- let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@gaytona.com
