Martinsville, October, 2013

We got going yesterday about 7:15, and made it to Martinsville about 9, finding our pals just where they'd said they were on the cell coming in, slightly east of the row of portolets which were lining the main road through the hilly grounds that are the parking area for the track itself. We found a place nearby in short order, then wandered the banks of merch semis and watched Danica give a sweet interview, after that part of an interview with Junior, where we joined the mugger audience.

I got myself, at last, one of the difficult to find Kyle Busch Interstate Battery hats. Libby shopped for tiny model race cars, some of which she'll present to our nephew Wyatt down the road.

It was altogether a perfect day. The sky was blue, the temp in the '60s. While there was plenty of banging and bumping in the race, the last section of 50 or so laps was caution free, and there was not a tiresome green/while/checker finale. Jeff Gordon overtook Matt Kenseth with a few laps remaining and won the race. Bren, the Early Blurs website designer/manager and our seat mate at the race pulls for Jeff, and it's the first race he's won at Martinsville since we've been going--usually the place is owned either by Jimmie Johnson or Denny Hamlin. My man Kyle has never won there. Bren's hubby pulls for Tony Stewart, who won last year, and the dune buggy in the pic at the top is his ride, but with Mark Martin at the wheel because Stewart has been recovering from a bad wreck in the summer.

After the race we all met at the portolets and our vehicles, and watched the big semis roll out. There's no point in trying to leave Martinsville in a hurry. It was dark before we got on the road, at the very tail end of the long parade down 220 to Greensboro and points south. I did get to use a portolet before we left. Someone had stuck a little placard into the urinal. It read "Vote NRA." What's a guy to do. I sure didn't try to rescue it. I should have taken a picture.

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Addendum (from our conversation on the ride home). If you look closely at the dune buggy chasing Jeff photo at the top you'll note that they painted the concrete guttering that lines the inside of the turns at Martinsville a vivid pink for the race--part of the on-going initiative in sports to remind people that breast cancer exists and needs research. Of all the risable Limbovian memes (and he's not the only one--there are actual alleged women running this garbage too), this surely tops the very long list: somehow sport is being "feminized." We then imagined a race on Limbovian terms: the cars would all be black and silver, and the sponsors would be Jack Daniels, Trojans, and Ruger Arms. What a grim dance it would be. No more Tide cars, no Clorox, no Sugar Smacks, and certainly not Gordon's Destroy World Hunger. They'd have to bring back all the cigarette advertising, the Skol Bandit car, the Winston Cup. The only current member of the field who might fit in without editing would be Kurt Busch, who runs the black 78 Denver Mattress car. Mr. Busch was unable to pass Danica's pink and green Go Daddy 10 for 16th place this past Sunday. Yee Haw.

While we didn't go up for the truck race, the hilarious doings of Harvick and his employer deserve some mention. Harvick called Childress' grandkids, the Dillon boys, sniveling rich kids who've gotten it all for free. Gramps was pissed off and snarled back "is not, are not, were not." Next day Harvick, who bites nails for snacks, apologized and blamed it on the heat of the race. Where's my youtube of Kyle pushing Harvick's car out of the way when Harvick tried to trap him at the end of Darlington, last year. It's never too genius to get into a fight with a guy behind the wheel of a 900 HP race car, when you're standing outside the window.