Jack (Not) In The Box 500

Another race is in the can.

Aahh… it’s that time again in Charlotte: wild onions, late colors, roaring engines, and the “ring of fire” (per ESPN folk).

During the 1st 80% of the race, I was thinking maybe I owe you all in places such as New Hampshire, Kansas and Chicago an apology. The racing Saturday night was certainly reminiscent of those tracks – strung out and less than compelling. Of course, since it was at my “home track”, I perceived it as just fine. It occurred to me that maybe I was just biased. Nah.

Charlotte usually produces a car or two that is hooked up and stinks up the joint and rarely is there a photo finish. However, there’s no better big track to see a race – in person or on TV. It may be a 1.5 mile oval, but it has character, speed (the fastest in 2011), the world’s largest on-site TV, free parking and you can bring enough food and drink in for every event except the “600”. (It’s so long. They don’t allow coolers that big – you might have to buy something.)  Even when the racing isn’t the most exciting, it looks great and the teams love it because they can be home in their own beds before some people get out of the parking lot.

Jr. keeps telling me that Nationwide Insurance doesn’t report to Wall Street but to its customers. If I were a customer I’d want to know why they’re spending so much of my money on all those commercials.

10.15.67: At Charlotte, Buddy Baker got his first win and stopped Richard Petty’s winning streak at 10.

If Ned was in the booth we’d know what’s up with Robbie Faggart.

Ref: racing-reference.info, Greg Fielden’s “Forty Years of Stock Car Racing”, Richard Sowers’ “The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing”.

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