Danica Patrick leads Lap 30 of the Drive4COPD 300 at Daytona Int. Speedway
Sometimes it seems to me that I stop speaking out loud, thinking out loud and that all my voices are mumbling, mumbling, mumbling. I think that I’ve said something , written something, and when I look for the documentary evidence, it is nowhere to be found. Now anyone that knows me knows that when I am quiet-spoken, I can be so almost to the point of telepathy….a look, a mumble, like a jar of bees hovering off in the distance, off in some lush semiotic darkness.
So I was thinking to myself that I’d already made some wonderful remarks about last Sunday’s Daytona 500, and yet here I am, 6 or 8 hours before the start of the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix where the REAL dirty work of the NASCAR season begins, beset by the realization that I’ve said naught a word about young Trevor Bayne and his remarkable victory in last Sunday’s quasi-homoerotic yaoi Daytona 500.
Trevor Bayne becomes youngest driver to win Gaytona 500
The 2011 Daytona 500 boiled down to 200 laps of who gets to play butch tonight, and who get taken for a ride, shall we say. It was very odd to see a whole race of this disturbingly quasi-gayness play out in NASCAR’s full hallucinogenic roar. But it was a fun race to watch, and in the end, improbably to say the least, youth was served, and for once, not well roasted. It was all boys-love punctuated by a few nice bitch-slapping wrecks. Those sassy boys paired up and had at it….ahem! For the first time, they had 4, and in Paul Menard’s case 14, butt-buddies on their radios so they express the furor of their boy-love for one another. And in the end, as they separated from each other’s manly embraces at the end of the final lap, spent from hours of furious love-making, it was young Trevor Bayne who led the pack to the checkered flag, holding off the butch-crazed Carl Edwards to claim the Harley J. Earl Daytona 500 Trophy.
Good work Trevor. And it was nice to see the Wood Brothers win something again after all these long and terrible years. As for the Boys-Love style of racing….I hope to not see that again anytime soon. It better not happen at Phoenix today, or I will have Scott at The Firehouse turn it off immediately and switch to the Oxygen Channel (bring your own) or the Oprah Winfrey Network
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Mr. Chelsea rallies the Troops!!
John Terry rallied his fellow Blues ahead of last Tuesday’s Champions League away fixture with FC København by telling them to essentially: “MAN UP!! GROW A PAIR OF HAIRY TESTICALS, LADS. STOP PLAYING LIKE A BUNCH OF DOPEY WANKERS.” Whether or not this locker-room banter will have the desired impact in the long term, it fired the Blues up enough to lay a 0-2 beating upon the cherubic heads of København…well maybe cherubic is naught quite the word with former Blues midfielder Jesper Grønkjær awaiting neigh unto breathless to trip the Blues’ 2010-2011 season even further down the flight of stairs down which they’ve been a-tumbling. But in the end, it was our favourite Frenchman, Nicolas Anelka who carried the day with a brace of goals.
No goals yet for Fernando Torres, But his day will come. And that day will be Tuesday, March 1st, at Stamford Bridge when Sir Alex and His Little Red Devils toddle down the M4 to London for the rescheduled argy-bargy that I’ve be awaiting on for months. It will be a matter of who will be less old, less tired, less scared. It’s a match that has taken a significantly different colour from the time it first appeared on the schedule. It will boil down to mentality more than football ability. If Chelsea is to win this, and they must, ((for if they don’t they spend next season buggering Young Boys and others of that ilk in the Europa League)), they need to not listen to Sir Alex and whatever he says ahead of Tuesday’s match. They must not think. They must only do. That, plus what John Terry said, and sometimes does, above.
But my honest feeling is that last season was probably the last hurrah for Lampard, Terry, Drogba and Anelka. Everyone, myself included, thought they could all trot out for another Victory Lap this season. But…their age is creeping up on them. They are a step or two off…an infinitesimal moment too slow, and that makes all the difference. It has, this season. The youth on the team and in development is a still a year or two away. Young Josh McEachran will be brilliant, but at 18, he’s still a lad. Daniel Sturridge ((who they certainly could use right NOW)) was sent out of loan to Bolton earlier this season…and guess who’s been Bolton best scorer of late. If you guessed Daniel Sturridge, who scored another at the 38 minute mark of yesterday’s draw with Newcastle, you’ve just won a free pie.
Signing Fernando Torres and Davd Luiz makes Chelsea younger, and is a step in the right direction. But they’ll need to do a bit more and build this team for the long-term. I wonder if Roman Abromovich can show the patience and long-range vision to do that. What he needs is a GM like Green Bay Packer’s Ted Thompson who can build a team that can develop young talent and build depth that can weather any storm and win Championships. I have a my doubts that he discipline his billions to that degree….there’s too much Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones in him. Chelsea needs to get younger and they need more depth. Abromovich can afford to buy the best, but money isn’t everything if it’s not wisely invested. Getting Torres and Luiz were smart, if flashy moves…and I don’t honestly expect to the dividends from that until next season since Luiz can’t play in the Champions League for Chelsea this season, and there, defense will be VITAL to winning.
In any case, Tuesday’s tilt with Man U will tell the tale. In 2 days, 5 hours and change, we will know what sort of tale will be told for generations to come. We will know by then who will prance about like giddy little schoolgirls for the rest of the season. Youth will be served on Tuesday. And until then….
Hopefully, NASCAR will return to some semblance of normality today as the boys tee it up this afternoon in Phoenix for the Subway Fresh Fit 500. The Carl leads from the front with Kurt Busch next in line. If I were to bet all my mother-in-law’s money on this, and had to chose between Kurt or The Carl to win this, I’d put it on Kurt. But I’m not really set on who will have the best shot at this. I’m still a little frayed and frazzled from all that homo-erotic Daytona madness to think straight about a race that could not possibly be more straight-forward than this one. Junior qualified like dull tedious shite, and Kenseth will have to claw his way from the middle of the pack as usual. So will that Homo Jeff Gordon if he wants a chance to win. What I do know, is that the young of Trevor Bayne will careen headlong into reality (something he already knows, by the way). Youth will served up today as nicely prepared dish of bangers and mash. I must therefore give me mother-in-law her money back today.
I will wait, instead, for Tuesday.