February 18, 2009
By Larry Van Zandt
The Season-Opening Daytona 500 wrapped up this Sunday, and to be honest with you, based on the race itself, I am having a hard time deciding what I should be feeling, having the race stopped with 120 miles to go.
I wanted my sentimental favorite, Mark Martin, to win the event. I think that Martin had one heck of a car, and had the event gone the full 500 miles, I think we would have seen an exciting finish, with only a dozen more cars wiped out on the next-to-last lap.
Who would have won?
Sheetmetal suppliers.
However, at the same time, the race was really beginning to get ugly. Due to NASCAR engineering the cars to only be able to run in a close pack on the superspeedways, I now have an added degree of respect for the drivers, as it takes a bit of skill to keep the cars from bouncing off of each other while going 190 mph.
I initially thought that it must be nerve-wracking to race like that, but if you study psychology, you discover that when humans are constantly exposed to traumatic events….it tends not to bother you as much after a while. In other words, the drivers simply accept that they have to drive an inherently unstable racecar if they want to continue to have a job.
I think that if all 43 drivers simply refused to drive that COSHAT heap for a few of races in a row, you might see something different happen….but I’m not holding my breath, as there are too many idiots lined up who would gladly replace a driver possessing a conscience, never mind the carnage that would result.
This is immaterial, however, considering the visual assault I was forced to endure simply due to the commercials.
I wanted the race to end, because I’m sick to death of the continuous stream of commercial breaks. And judging by the amount of booze ad spots, you’d swear that Beer itself was about to be put under the heel of Prohibition again.
“Budweiser! Why? Because tomorrow might be too late!”
Yes, thank you, Budweiser. I am now painfully aware of your full product lineup. I am now also aware that you must enjoy insulting the intelligence of potential customers, with you pushing a product that’s popular due to it being cheap, not because it’s good.
Just in case it’s escaped your attention, I don’t drink any form of alcohol. In fact, my only foray into the world of the inebriated consists of a sip of beer at age twelve, and a sip of Scotch that my brother pranked me with a week after the ‘Beer’ episode. This is not due to religious reasons, or any other bizarre occurrence, I just simply never got involved with booze of any kind. Maybe it’s a control issue….I simply don’t know. I think it has more to do with my father being a boozehound than anything else.
While I have some interesting stories of things my father did while plastered, I would like to think I was more responsible than he was….here are but a few things my father did while shellacked:
I can remember driving 240 miles during a road trip in Oklahoma….with me driving from the passenger seat of a truck. My dad was trying to recover from a hangover, by drinking coffee, and reading the entire Sunday Daily Oklahoman newspaper…while in the driver’s seat.
Another memory was of my father collecting a ticket for going 91 mph….in a church parking lot…with speed bumps. He somehow talked the officer into letting himself drive home. Of course, I got to witness this from the driver’s seat.
My father tried to do a flaming VHT (track bite compound used in drag racing) burnout with a rented 1982 Mustang GT….in a Las Vegas hotel parking lot after a drag race there (Or was it at another track? That was only 27 years ago…lol). He backed the car up into a puddle of VHT, had one of the plastered crew members light the puddle off, and he proceeded to try to melt the tires off of the back of the Mustang, while the VHT blazed around him. It was pretty spectacular at least until I pointed out to him that the back of the rented Mustang was also now ablaze. He somehow got the damage repaired by 1pm the next day, after shoving the funny car out, and pulling the Mustang in for an all-nighter in the enclosed car trailer. And of course, he was three sheets to the wind the entire time.
That’s some of the stuff my father engaged in…and it probably has a lot to do with my avoiding cigarettes, drugs, or booze to this very day. I’m still puzzled as to how he was a better car painter when he was drunk….
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching about how anyone should stop drinking (Smoking, however? I’ve seen two people actually die because of smoking-related cancer). What I’m getting sick of, however, is commercial after commercial pushing booze off to the public….as if we didn’t know it existed. Gee, is there no other company out there wishing to sell a product during a NASCAR race?
Of course, I already know the answer to my own question, because I am now also aware that the new 2009 Ford F-150 now comes equipped STANDARD with trailer sway control, supposedly gets excellent gas mileage (something Ford’s gasoline modular truck motors never did) and comes with optional side steps and tailgate step. In fact, I saw so many commercials about the all-new Ford truck, that I’m convinced that I now know more about the new F-150 than any other man alive….
“How do you know so much about the F-150, Larry? Did you help build it?”
“No, but I stayed at a Denis Leary Express last night!”
Hey, Denis; can you tell me if the Ford F150 commercials have Aerodynamic Wake-UP properties?
And finally….just in case you missed the sneak preview, during the race itself, the movie ‘The Watchmen’ is airing in theaters March 9th, 2009.
Yes, it was created by the director of ‘300’. You know, the family movie about the fall of Sparta.
Why would Fox be pushing this R-rated movie during a NASCAR race? Am I a freaking prude? Or do I have a legitimate gripe here? If I wanted to be assaulted by ads for R-rated movies, I would simply have turned off the TV set, and waited a couple of hours to switch the TV back on for Fox’s prime-time lineup. Who knows, the movie might be good….for an adult. However, when I have a 10 and a 13-year-old now wanting to see the movie when it comes out….I don’t think so.
Couple this with the absolutely-obnoxious ‘Digger-Cam’….and I might simply bail from watching the rest of the Fox NASCAR tenure, and listen to the races on the Motor Racing Network (MRN Radio)….at least the wares that are being hawked by the radio ad spots are products that I might actually use someday.
See you next week.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
You can contact Larry Van Zandt at