Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! Well, for several guys, making the Chase all came down to Saturday night at a sold-out Richmond raceway. Bright hopes were raised and dashed there in the capital of the Old Confederacy, a city that spent so much time under seige during the Civil War that the government took to printing up helpful pamphlets instructing the starving populace in the proper way to clean and cook rats.
When the shouting was done, our DeVine 9 1/2 had put three fellows in the Chase for the Championship: Mark Martin, Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman. Though I'm glad to see Ryan in the show, you know I'm all cut up about Jamie McMurray missing out for the second year running.
Some elements of the field as it is now set are appealing, in particular having Mark and Rusty, both swanning through their goodbye tours, now together in the Chase. And certainly, the hot dog boy wonder Carl seems carved out of the very essense of speed, sleek as a charging colt bolting toward dawn. Ryan's record of eight Cup wins in 2004 qualifies him as a terrific possibility, using some kind of super-science to pull it off, waving his much-discussed Purdue engineering degree out the window!
Yet you've got to imagine that if NASCAR's marketing department had its way, somehow at least Jeff and Jr. would have made the cut. Between them, they probably account for more than half the fans at the speedways. Likewise, Mikey's mug has become one of the sport's most widely seen. And can you imagine all the publicity if the brazenly gorgous Kasey and Jamie were going at it to be top dawgy?
But it is what it is, and I think among Ryan, Mark and Carl, we've got a real shot at seeing one of our guys take the Championship. And we've still got 10 races for all our guys to show out. Go, DeVine 9 1/2!
We enjoyed Saturday's race at Monkey Island, our Daytona Beach estate, over the radio, and then on TV at the downtown sports bar Red Tail. This club occupies the space that used to be Ray's, a gay bar, a few years back. Red Tail attracts a racially mixed straight hottie crowd that likes to party.
The radio did not say the name of the preacher, but he sounded African-American and offered a fine invocation, remembering all those lost four years ago Sunday. Then we had a real treat as Gretchen Wilson sang the National Anthem! "Redneck Woman" was so tight and funny that I really expected this babe to be a one-hit wonder. (I mean, how could you top triumphantly proclaiming, "I'll stand barefooted in mah own front yard with a bay-bee on mah hip!"?) But she did, y'all: Gretchen's "All Jacked Up" is an Absolut anthem to the great Southern pasttime of getting "tore up." It's about stopping by some joint for happy hour and shutting the place down like eight hours later! The video is a scream, too.
We rolled out with Harvick and Biffle on the front row. The race included numerous exciting moments, but why relive them all just now, right here? Let's just say that I turned to Dixie at one point and said, "Jamie's just too nice out there -- he needs to learn the old motto of the wrestler Eddie Guerro: "Cheat to Win!" (For real, I'm ready for the Democrats to get on that. Why be a chump, trying to play by the rules against a plain thug?}
The night's worst moment came at lap 363 when Jamie -- having been yet again been given two tires, not four, by a pit crew I'm getting really suspicious about -- got tagged and wrecked by Tony Raines. That was it for Jamie's shot at the Chase, and Kurt Busch won the race.
ENUMCLAW IN THE NEWS
Kasey Khane's hometown of Enumclaw, Wash., went all-out to celebrate its famous driver on Sept. 5, when 3,000-5,000 people turned out for Kasey Khane day. The town even renamed a downtown street after the 2004 Raybestos Rookie of the Year! How very cool!
But you have to wonder if part of the motivation was to get some good news about Enumclaw into the media. You see, Enumclaw had recently been in the spotlight for a most unwanted reason. The story is indelicate, to say the least, but if you want to read about it, GoogleNews "Enumclaw" and "horse." It seems a man actually died after making a horrible, horrible romantic decision involving a stallion. In the aftermath, the farm where this awful encounter took place was outed as a hotspot for such activity. Lucky for Enumclaw it has a handsome beau like Kasey to remind everyone what's nice, not pervy, about the town.
ONE GOOD THING THAT HURRICANE DID...
In observing a lot of cars on my recent trip to Daytona Beach, it looks to me like Katrina might have "blown off" a lot of those leftover Bush stickers. Seemed like I saw less and less of them as the disaster wore on! Maybe that's because now that Bush's vile ignorance and incompetence are plain as the sun for all to see, having a "W" on your car might attract the same kind of attention on the road as "KKK ALL THE WAY!" or "I HEART AL-QAEDA!"
That's it for this week friends. The Chase is on! See you in New Hampshire! Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@gaytona.com
