May 7, 2007
By Chuck Abrams
Remember the good ol’ days where people hated Dale Earnhardt – “anyone but Earnhardt” was the mantra. Or some hated DW? Ol’ Jaws could rally run his mouth at times. The in the 90’s this kid Jeff Gordon comes out of nowhere, dethrones the once mighty Intimidator and shows DW that his best days were long gone.
Ooooh how we loved to hate Jeff Gordon. Or love him. If you loved him, you still hated Earnhardt who was not as washed up as DW was. And along came Dale Jr. whom some decided to hate just because of his name. But he sure was a nice kid and it sure was hard to hate him for long. Or hate anyone for that matter.
NASCAR went through quite a spell where there was really no one to hate. We all had someone to cheer for but who did we want to see lose? NASCAR went vanilla on us and fans went away. Sure, we had Kurt Busch to hate for a minute or two but he went Mr. Nice on us even though we all know it was fake nice.
Now some people have learned to Hate Tony Stewart when he acts like spoiled brat but that is hard to maintain when he complains about NASCAR as much as fans do. But his long open wheeled racer hairstyle and expanding waistline have given some reason to still believe…I mean hate.
Still others hate Juan Pablo Montoya because he is from Columbia the country and not Columbia, South Carolina.
But thanks to the Busch family of Nevada, we all now have a real guy to hate. One that seems brash, self-promoting, heartless, careless, indifferent -- PLUS he drives a TOYOTA. We are talking about the most hated man in Richmond, Virginia, ladies and gentle give a nice warm one finger salute to Mr. KYLE BUSCH (crowd goes wild).
After running hard all night, Jr. and Kyle Busch seemed destined to clash once Denny Hamlin got a flat tire late in the race. Had Hamlin not had that tire issue, we’d be talking about his weekend sweep. But God did not want him to win Saturday night (he actually said that) and God preferred to see Jr. and Busch battle for the win and evidently, God is a Kyle Busch fan as Dale Jr. went spinning into the wall and finished 15th.
Running the high line for most of the final laps, the duo went racing into Turn 3, Earnhardt pinched down to hold Busch on the bottom. Busch obliged, but drove in too hard on old tires, corrected and hit Earnhardt sending him into the fence and sending himself into instant immortality in Jr. Nation.
With Hamlin out of the way, the Beloved One was about to end his 2 year win drought at Richmond, the pace he recorded his last win. Earnhardt had been pressing his team all evening for the one final tweak to put his car into contention. He was actually running Hamlin down in the waning laps and appeared to be in line for a top 5 run.
After Hamlin faltered. fate intervened with a late caution allowing Busch to close up on Earnhardt ensuring an Almighty-inspired closing laps dual.
So go ahead and hate that unapologetic I did nothing wrong Kyle Busch. But remember, God had a hand in this so if you hate Busch, you may be going against God.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.
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