The month of February is the longest month of the year. Every race fan knows this. It's not the crappy weather, the lack of holidays or the rediculously short days. It's the final dreary month of the year without any racing taking place. You end up spending more and more time dredging through the internet for any old bit of racing related news. You follow lap by lap coverage of winter testing and try to drag some sense out of it, you look for ticket prices to races in Barcelona, Spa, and Hungary, you come to understand the political situation in Bahrain because you are worried about the possibility of the season being postponed, and you go through the final, most terrible stage of racing withdrawal. You start to get excited about the Daytona 500.
The Daytona 500 is terrible. It should be good. It's not the cars going round and round in circles. I like cars going round and round in circles. I like the Indy 500 and any race they hold at Pocano. But the Daytona 500 is a restrictor plate race which means the fastest way around the place is to race in one huge pack. This year there was a threat with the new track surface that people would be able to break away from the pack and race in drafting pairs. So they reduced the restictor plate size to 57/64th of an inch (I told you I have a lot of time on my hands in February). Because of this I am forced to get excited about a train for another year. The backmarkers will be about 200 metres behind the leader and the leader will change once every lap so you know that leading isn't even very important. My job will be exactly the same as every driver in the field. That would be the job of staying awake. Because of course eventually someone in the inside lane will sink into a coma and forget to turn left. This will result in about half a dozen other drivers being woken up by the slight rattle of their helmet rubbing against the roof of their car while their cousin's bumper sticks through their rear window. 20 minutes of replays will follow and a couple of interviews with drivers who will invariably blame the other for intentionally taking them out. These interviews are great because you get to see the drivers try and remember every sponsor that has ever given them money every time they mention the car or the team. "The Budweiser, Kotex, number 14 Chevy was working great untill the Trojan, Halvoline, Goodyear, Hubba Bubba, number 17 of Cousin Jeff decided to take me out. I don't know what he was thinking. Just a stupid move after all the work my Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Playboy, Go Army team did to get us here". That sort of thing.
Oh well. Soon it will be May and all I'll have to complain about is the fact that they manage to put two of the biggest races of the year on the same day as my girlfriends birthday.
The Daytona 500 is terrible. It should be good. It's not the cars going round and round in circles. I like cars going round and round in circles. I like the Indy 500 and any race they hold at Pocano. But the Daytona 500 is a restrictor plate race which means the fastest way around the place is to race in one huge pack. This year there was a threat with the new track surface that people would be able to break away from the pack and race in drafting pairs. So they reduced the restictor plate size to 57/64th of an inch (I told you I have a lot of time on my hands in February). Because of this I am forced to get excited about a train for another year. The backmarkers will be about 200 metres behind the leader and the leader will change once every lap so you know that leading isn't even very important. My job will be exactly the same as every driver in the field. That would be the job of staying awake. Because of course eventually someone in the inside lane will sink into a coma and forget to turn left. This will result in about half a dozen other drivers being woken up by the slight rattle of their helmet rubbing against the roof of their car while their cousin's bumper sticks through their rear window. 20 minutes of replays will follow and a couple of interviews with drivers who will invariably blame the other for intentionally taking them out. These interviews are great because you get to see the drivers try and remember every sponsor that has ever given them money every time they mention the car or the team. "The Budweiser, Kotex, number 14 Chevy was working great untill the Trojan, Halvoline, Goodyear, Hubba Bubba, number 17 of Cousin Jeff decided to take me out. I don't know what he was thinking. Just a stupid move after all the work my Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Playboy, Go Army team did to get us here". That sort of thing.
Oh well. Soon it will be May and all I'll have to complain about is the fact that they manage to put two of the biggest races of the year on the same day as my girlfriends birthday.
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