I’m not sure if this brief interlude between posts meant that I needed the time to absorb some vital or essential knowledge about motorsports, football, poetry, music which I hate, science fiction which I also hate, or whether this interlude simply resulted from laziness or a lack of courage. Perhaps all of the above. Or none of it. The NASCAR Hall of Fame inducted it’s inuagural class, a pantheon of spectacular brilliance: Bill France Sr, Bill France Jr, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Junior Johnson, and I watched every moment of it. The All Star race came and went and vanished into memory with a tumultuous finish. Kurt Busch grabbed the glory and the Million Dollar Check. I went and grabbed (the next day at The Firehouse) a tall glass of ice and a bottle of Miller Lite for the quintessential Polish Victory Lap that is my custom when Kurt Busch wins a race. And Kurt’s younger brother Kyle, whose hopes of winning the aforementioned race were dashed during the final moments while racing his teammate Denny Hamlin for the win, when Hamlin squeezed him up into the wall, and a few laps later Kyle blew a tire and that was the end of it. Or would have had Kyle not threatened to KILL his team-mate Hamlin. (More on THAT in a moment)
So all of the above, and all the stars in the sky. All of that and the REAL Super Bowl…the UEFA Champions League Final. Last Saturday in Madrid. Barcelona 2 Bayern München 0. Yes…the glory and grace of the game, and the glory and grace of Venessa Redgrave in the movie Letters To Juliet. Nothing and everything to think about. I watched the countless stars as they vanished, like the words I’m writing now.
I toss these words off into the darkness like little stones skipping across the moonlit water. Hoping against hope that they might rise up into the sky and shine there for at least one or two descending series of moments before dropping into the murky depth. After all, not many people take the time to dive into the deep water, to plumb the darkness for the sparkling treasure hidden there.
But lets go see what’s down there.
Yes, during the closing moments of The All Star Race, Kyle Busch, over his team radio, threatened to kill Denny Hamlin. Obvious it wasn’t a literal threat, it was a heat of the moment thing, but nonetheless, unacceptable. As I alluded to earlier, during the closing moments of the All Star Race, Hamlin, the leader, pinched Kyle into the wall…that is, Hamlin was NOT going to give up the lead to Kyle who was trying to pass him on the outside going into turn 2. Perfectly acceptable racing on Hamlin’s part, teammate or not, especially in a non-points race where it’s every man for himself going to for the win and a Million Dollar Check. A few laps after Kyle got pinched into the wall, he blew a tire and that was the end of his race.
Kyle, of course, got peevish about it. Killing Denny Hamlin….with what? Kindness? Even Kyle himself joked about it afterwards, “with what, my good looks?” Yes. Funny and ha ha. But not really. This comedic interlude is more like a Rupert Pupkin monologue. Now don’t get me wrong, I LIKE Kyle Busch and the fact that he can be an insufferable asshole. I like that…NASCAR needs a guy like that. And most of the time, he gets his shtick down perfectly. Not this time though. Maybe, come to think of it, Kyle should have nicked a page from Rupert Pupkin after all. Rupert ‘s parting shot on the Jerry Langford show was: “Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.” Once Kyle takes that lesson to heart, without being both at the same time, only THEN he will become a true Champion.
“Why not me? Why not? A guy can get anything he wants as long as he pays the price. What’s wrong with that? Stranger things have happened.”
Meanwhile, Kyle Busch goes and wins tonight’s Tech-Net Auto Service 300 at Charlotte in typical fashion…surviving numerous restarts and nudging by Kesolowski by .112 seconds. And in typical fashion he celebrates to a chorus of boos. So all is right with his world for the moment. But only until next time. Then it’s anybody’s guess.
Theoretically, his little tiff with Denny Hamlin is over with. Owner Joe Gibbs immediately stepped in to mediate and knock some sense into his two drivers. Surprisingly, Mike Helton and Brian France didn’t call those boys to the hauler for a little chat. But then again, I guess spouting off on the radio that you’ll kill someone is nowhere near actually attempting to, like The Carl almost did to The Brad at Atlanta. Talk is fairly cheap. Doing is another matter.
Hmmm..it occurs to me we are not getting very deep here. Well, snorkeling is fine too. Onward.
As I write this, the Turkish Gran Prix has begun in Istanbul and almost completed. I would be watching it except for the fact that the hotel I am currently at in Roseville, Minnesota, does NOT carry a full array of cable channels. So no SPEED channel and thus no live broadcast in the background as I bang out these little words and phrases. I’m in Minnesota this weekend for my grand-daughter’s first birthday, which was yesterday, and I will not belabor the obvious and bestow upon you the universe of cuteness that that wonderful series of moments unveiled. You all have vivid imaginations I am sure, so make use of them….picture in your mind’s eye, for example, my grand-daughter Liliana wearing a Tinker Bell dress and feeding cake to my ex-wife’s dog Charlotte. That, and more.
Webber got his third straight pole as the Red Bull boys qualified in the top three again, with Lewis Hamilton second. I caught the last few laps on the live timing of the F1 website. And I’m not spoiling anything by saying that the winner was Lewis Hamilton, with his teammate Jenson Button joining him on the podium in 2nd place. Polesitter Mark Webber joins the McLaren Mercedes boys on the podium by finishing third. But just as teammates Hamlin and Busch got into in the All Star race a week ago Saturday, today, the Red Bull boys got into it on lap 39 forcing Sebastian Vettel to retire from the race.
There is no truth to the rumour that Joe Gibbs is being flown to Istanbul to mediate the tiff between the two Red Bull teammates. Nor is there any truth to the speculation that Vettel and Webber are, as I type this, on separate jets en-route to Charlotte for a little chat with Mike Helton, Brian France, Joe Gibbs, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, & Matt Kenseth to discuss how turmoiled teammates must learn to get along in this brave world of motorsports. But it would be kind of funny if either of these two rumours were true, if only a Rupert Pupkin sort of way.
At 12:03 PM CDT today, Jim Nabors will stroll up to the mike to belt out the traditional “Back Home Again In Indiana“. This is an Indy 500 tradition as inviolable as the winner drinking milk in Victory Lane. I can’t possibly imagine anyone by Jim Nabors singing that before Mari Hulman George, or whoever replaces her someday as Chairman of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway steps up to the mike and starts the great race off with the timeless command: “Ladies & Gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!!”
But someday, Jim Nabors will no longer be with us, so….who the fock will they trot out there to sing Back Home Again In Indiana? Who will eventually replace him? John Cougar Mellencamp? Jazz singer Kurt Elling? Some fecking American Idol wannabee?? A hologram of Jim Nabors?
I’m not sure I want to think about what to think here. So for now, tune at 12:03PM CDT on the ABC affiliate near you. I’m hoping I can catch this on the spectacyular new and modern technology called Radio. Since I will most likely be driving back to Wisconsin at that point, somewhere along the mighty Mississippi. And by the time y’all read this, the scoreboard will be lit up and the milk will have been drunk. And all of us will be drunk. And Jim Nabors will be drunk. And John Cougar Mellancamp will be drunk.
And yet I wonder.
Danica Patrick will not be saving NASCAR until later this season. And in the meantime, it looks like she won’t be saving the IRL anytime soon either. She qualified 23rd for the Indy 500. Her speed sucked. Her car sucked. In fact, all the of the Andretti Motorsports drivers sucked in qualifying. Marco qualified 16th, Ryan Hunter-Reay 17th. Tony Kanaan barely qualified at all, in 33rd…the last car on the grid in Row 11. Something is clearly not right at Andretti. This team was supposed to give Ganassi and Penske a real run this season. Clearly that’s not going to happen. Unless Danica or Marco or Ryan can find some speed, they’ll be lucky to even crack the top 10 when all is said and done.
Danica is not even the highest female qualifier. Ana Beatriz and the upcoming Simona De Silvestro qualified 21st and 22nd respectively. As much as I’d love to see Danica in Victory Lane chugging the milk, I don’t think she’ll be close…definitely not as close as she was last year. If I were to bet my mother-in-law’s money on this, I’d put it all on Helio to repeat…okay…not all of it, I’d put some on his team-mate Will Power.
Come to think of it, I might stop in some little river town and have a beer and watch some of this. You never know, until I tell you. Which will be next time. You can bet YOUR Mother-in-law’s money on THAT!
As for Danica, well…I hope JR Motorsports has their A Game ready when Danica comes back to save NASCAR. She’s no doubt going to be pig-biting mad by then. Even Kyle Busch had better give her wide-berth. He just might suddenly become smart enough by then to do so. Will wonders never cease.
Now it’s time to pack up and leave. Time for traveling. I apologize if our little diving into the depths adventure merited little result. That’s the way it goes sometimes, many times….one dives in looking for shipwrecks and buried treasure only to emerge empty-handed with a case of the bends. This is no exception. The water was wet and the depths were dark, except for a few little flashbulbs going off every now and then.
A little bit about the title of this, since some of you probably don’t have Japanese on your computer. In romaji, which is Japanese spelled with English letters, title of this post is Subete No Hoshi. Literally translated as All The Stars. MY translation is, of course. The All-Stars. Much of Japanese translation and understanding is taken from context and a considerable bit of what we spell out with sometimes excruciating detail in English, is left unstated in Japanese since most of what is said and written in that language is usually implied from context.
That’s my excuse this week for everything, and I’m sticking to it. And like Kyle, I will apologize for nothing. Meanwhile, let’s cue up the music, and out the door I go.