I've heard some say, including Rusty himself, that it might be too soon for him to be inducted, but hey, he is eligible and the rules are clear. His number of wins, plus a Championship, place him next in line based on statistics, and he has the added value of being a name recognized by the younger generation of fans. Welcome aboard Rusty! I won't be pitching a hissy-fit on this subject.
So, with the book on last week closed, we move to this week's racing and Memorial Day observances. Friday brought Carburetion Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is the day when qualified cars are allowed to practice in "Race trim." Truth is, carburetors haven't been used on Carburetion Day or anywhere else at Indy save perhaps the parking lot since 1963. I chose to skip watching that one in favor of making salads and things for sustenance over the following three days. Besides, I can live nicely without a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, thank you. That band has to date back to those same carburetors.
Saturday night brought the Nationwide race at Charlotte, which was not a snoozer by any means. The pony-car look-alikes put on a pretty fair race, with Brad Keselowski coming home the winner over Denny Hamlin. The announcers did their best to make it sound as though it were close and added "drama" about Brad's possible shortage of fuel, but in the end, there was about a full second between the two lead cars and Brad had enough gas to do a burnout and get to Victory Lane. You don't need any more than that.
Sunday morning brought Monaco and the super-tuned engines of F1 coming to life. It would have been veteran driver Michael Schumacher on the pole, but the Ecclestone Posse found him guilty of some technical sin of mortal proportions from a previous outing and set him back five positions on the grid. Instead, it was Red Bull driver, Mark Webber on point, and it was still Mark Webber at the checkers. F1 is like that. Mostly, I find the podium interviews and knockout qualifying are far more interesting than the race itself.
Immediately upon leaving Monaco, it was on to Indianapolis and the first Indy 500 with this year's brand new car. As always, the pre-race activities excelled, as Indianapolis honored our war dead in a somber fashion befitting the occasion. Martina McBride offered a very stirring and proper rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, as I'd hoped she would. Taps was a new experience this year. As the single bugle rent the air with its mournful notes, Dan Weldon's car slowly circled the big track alone. If tears weren't flowing after that, we listened to a recording of Jim Nabors, who, it is my understanding, is awaiting impending heart surgery. And time marches on...
The race itself was spectacular! The new Dallara chassis, with its enhanced "safety cell" surrounding the driver, did everything a race car should do. They set a new record for passes for the lead , and they were passes on the track, not in the pits! There was one frightening accident that left Mike Conway's car sliding along the wall and catch fence for a long time. Mike stepped out and walked away unharmed. I so wish the car had been in use at Las Vegas last year.
When the race ended, it was the dynamic duo from Ganassi Racing, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon on the podium, which was completed by Tony Kanaan, who finished third. Dario dedicated the win, his third at Indy, to his long-time friend Dan Wheldon, winner of last year's Indy 500, saying that everybody on the podium was a friend of Dan's. "Everybody loved him!"
I must have made a pit stop during Scott Dixon's interview, but I did hear the one with Tony Kanaan. He had been quite public about wanting to win for Dan, but nice guy that TK always is, he did not appear to be at all disappointed. His feelings, like Franchitti's, were that Dan's three best friends, he, Dario and Scott ran 1-2-3. "One of us was going to win it. It's all good."
Just a note here. When ABC aired the Indianapolis 500... The Greatest Spectacle in Racing... they gave it a one-hour introduction, which is more than enough time to learn all of the stories and facts a TV viewer should know. There were some three hours between the end of the Indy 500 and the NASCAR race in Charlotte. FOX and their cable affiliate, SPEED, used it all. In this writer's personal and humble opinion, that is overkill.
Even worse is that both of those FOX networks seem not to understand the meaning of Memorial Day, as the viewer was informed repeatedly throughout pre-race and actual race coverage that it was a day to honor our military men and women, and all veterans. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of the FOX network, but that day is November 11, and it is called "Veterans' Day." We're speaking here of "Memorial Day", which used to be known as "Decoration Day", and it is expressly dedicated to those that have given their lives in service to this great country. Both SPEED and FOX got that dead wrong but seemed dead set on being that way.
After the aforementioned three long hours, it was time for the pre-race ceremonies at Charlotte. Darius Rucker, once of Hootie and the Blowfish, gave the National Anthem a good try, and almost made it. Not a powerful voice, which I prefer for the Anthem, but the tune was true and he knew all the words. If he hadn't improvised his way through the very last part, I'd have given him an A for effort. B+ is all I can offer. The pipe band doing Amazing Grace was a nice touch, and I can't recall a bugler blowing Taps that didn't hold my attention.
And then it was time for what are definitely not the most famous words in auto racing, "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity. Let's go racing guys!" (Maybe he's mad at Ms. Patrick. I haven't a clue, but that is exactly what he said) The two cars from Richard Petty Motorsports started together on the front row. That wouldn't last, and as tends to be the case with a very long race, it droned on and on for hours. Either there wasn't much racing, or the cameras failed to find it when it happened, but this race bore none of the excitement of the race in Indy that preceded it. Perhaps we were spoiled?
With forty-some laps to go, the #5 car of Kasey Kahne mounted a charge to the front and got there in a hurry. It must have been about that time that someone whose initials are D.W. told us that Kasey's car, the #5 of Hendrick Motorsports, was Papa Joe's car. (Rick's Dad, Joe Hendrick) It was not, of course, but he gets the big bucks to revise history, and I'm here, where you might be the only one reading. The truth is that the #5 is the car Rick Hendrick started with, and was driven originally by Geoff Bodine, with Rick always the registered owner.
Papa Joe "technically" owned the Folgers #25 car, driven first by Tim Richmond (God, I miss that man) and later by an assortment of drivers that included Ken Schrader, Casey Mears, Joe Nemechek and others. It's the car that some say Tim cursed. If you follow the lineage, the #25, Papa Joe's car, is the one that Dale Jr. drives today as the #88.
There most certainly was no curse on Kasey Kahne's car. When the checkers flew at Charlotte, somewhere past my bedtime, he led Denny Hamlin by over four seconds and Kyle Busch by over ten. In short, after a long and mostly uneventful race, Kasey handily walked away from the other eight cars remaining on the lead lap. In keeping with the rest of the media, and in case anyone is curious, Ms. Danica Patrick finished 30th, five laps down to the leaders, yet will undoubtedly get more press than pole sitter Aric Almirola, who finished a respectable 16th, though 2 laps down.
Maybe it was because it was the third race I'd watched that day, maybe it was because the race in Indianapolis was so very exciting, or maybe the race really was boring, but by the 400-mile mark or so, my phone got more of my attention than my television as I texted with a friend. I'm happy that Kasey broke his long spell of totally rotten luck, and it was great to see him back in Victory Lane. Most of all, I'm happy that after cataloging the racing of the Memorial Day weekend, I haven't yet pitched a hissy-fit of major proportions at anyone or anything. No, correcting Darrell Waltrip's erroneous statements is not a hissy fit; it's somewhere between an avocation and a full-time job.
All in all, I'd say it was a good weekend to be a race fan. I enjoyed it immensely, though I spent it with no company other than my constant companion, Bitty Buddy the Shih Tzu. He likes to watch the races with me, but in all honesty, he didn't think much of either the bugle or the pipe band. 
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