...Weather

Wow this weekend's weather has been major. Can we blame it on Lee? Sure why not, though that only explains the weather in the South. College football games were stopped and restarted because of lightning strikes, some were even called early. Nascar was postponed until Tuesday. TUESDAY! I will be able to watch so I am okay with that. The NFL season starts this Thursday and next Sunday it will be back to football. I am sure the weather will be much much better but his Labor Day weekend has been very wet. I guess it matches the nation's mood. A lot of people are laborless so this 3 day weekend will feel the same as the weekends before. I am giving the weather a Digit Down.

...Auto Racing

I love cars, and I love racing them. Unfortunately with my driving record it is better for me to watch than to participate. Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial start to the Summer season, but for us race fans it is the greatest race weekend you can wish for.

The day starts at 7:30AM with Formula 1 racing in Monaco. The grandest race for that series it delivers high speeds on the only actual road course in Formula 1. If you are lucky to be there in person you may also be lucky enough to be on a yacht backed up against the track, literally 20 feet away in some spots. Though I love racing and I find Formula 1 interesting, it is not that exciting. F1 claims it is the most technologically advanced auto sport on earth. This may be true but it is a little boring and predictable. Basically the winner of the race will be one of the 1st 4 cars on the starting grid. This season if your name is not Vettel then you are probably not going to win the race, seeing how he has only lost once to Lewis Hamilton. This multi billion dollar sport needs more excitement. The most exciting part of this race was the start, as usual, and unfortunately the accident towards the end of the race.

Now we go to Indianapolis for the Indy 500, the grandest race for the Indy Car series. Somehow Danica Patrick is still a major headline grabber and attention getter. I understood why 4 years ago, but now...not so much. I think as a role model she is not so good either, I say that because I am sure a lot of people would use that in their argument for why she is good for the sport. She makes money from racing yes, but she makes a lot more form sponsorship deals, most notably GoDaddy. If you want to go there you could say she is telling girls that you do not have to be great at what you do just be pretty and guys will like you and pay you to see you showoff your body. Also she is like maybe the best of the worst. She has literally won 1 race in her Indy Car career! Hey little girls just know that no matter what you do a man will be better at it than you. I think the little girls got that message already...Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Lauren Alaina, etc. Back tot the race. It was better than I expected. I do like to watch the series when I can but it rarely seems to be on television. I do not like that they have a "push-to-pass" button that gives your car a little more horsepower and a little more RPMs to let you pass a car. Though you only get 15 per race it is still a little like cheating or taking an easy way out. I guess they were inspired by the "Fast and Furious" franchise. The race also seemed to try a little too hard to create stories. An Iraq war veteran "won" the chance to ride along with race legend Mario Andretti before the race started. Memorial Day weekend...war veteran..fluff piece...human interest story. Whomp! Then there was the car owner in a wheelchair...Whomp. Then there was the winner of the 1st Indy 500's son! Oh man they really tried hard to sell some stories and possibly earn an Emmy nom. The ending to the race was great. It came down to fuel and cars were dropping off and hitting the pits. The last lap, the final turn, a rookie JR Hildebrand crashed into the wall and Dan Wheldon won!

Finally there was NASCAR, the Coca-Cola 600, their longest race of the season. Maybe I am bias, but this was the best race of the night. These cars can take a lickin' and keep on tickin', as they would say int he backwoods of any Southern state. This race always comes down to endurance and gas. Can the engines and transmissions hold up? Do I have enough gas? Apparently a lot of people had to refuel towards the end as the yellow caution flag did not wave until there were 5 laps to go. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson's engine blew up. Now though Jimmy Johnson has won the championship 5 times, unlike F1 there were a host of other drivers winning races throughout the season. So with the rules stating that there can be up to 3 Green-White-Checkered finishes before the race is officially over that is what happened. The race started and Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the lead. An accident happened behind him but NASCAR officials let the race carry on because the track was clear by the time the other cars came back around. Earnhardt was exiting turn number 4 when he ran out of gas! We all thought his 208 winless streak was coming to an end... We were wrong. Kevin Harvick comes form behind like a thief in the night and wins the race. Thrilling for sure. He even has enough gas left over the do a doughnut, a burnout and drive into victory lane.

A Sunday like this comes once a year and when it comes I enjoy it. Breakfast in Monaco, Lunch in Indy and supper in Charlotte, as D.W. put it. It was a good day. I can only hope that next year F1 will deliver more action and excitement, but if not I will always have NASCAR. I am giving Auto Racing a Digit Up for sure.

...Trevor Baynes

Oh man! If you did not see this race then you were soooo missing the action. This year's Daytona 500 broke some records. It had 16 cautions, the previous record was 12. It had 74 lead changes between 22 cars, that is half of the cars out there. It had the youngest winner at 20 years and 1 day old in Trevor Baynes. This was a race that started with some of the favorites getting in a wreck, Jeff Gordan, Jimmy Johnson, Dale Earnhadt, etc. etc. etc. Regan Smith was a favorite afterwards and so were the Busch brothers and Tony Stewart, but no one thought about the rookie Trevor Baynes starting his 1st Daytona 500 in only his 2nd Sprint Cup race. By him winning this race he becomes the 2nd driver to win the race in their first attempt. The 1st guy to do it was Lee Petty at the 1st ever Daytona 500 race, so it could have been anyone. There were wrecks and failures and 2 Green-White-Checkered attempts and he was in the right place at the right time and had little to no damage on his car at the end of the race. It is pretty interesting when you think about this kid winning on his 1st try and a driver such as Mark Martin has had 27 shots at it and has never won. Could this kid be the next big thing? Jeff Gordon thinks so. He took him aside on Saturday and gave him some tips and pointers. Could he be a flash int he pan? It would be easier to go with this, but who knows. He has been described as a "fresh-faced, God-praising, genuinely likable kid". This could be the future or just a moment in time. Still I will go ahead and give Trevor Baynes a Digit Up.

...NASCAR

Are you ready for some NASCAR!?!?!?! It is that time of the year people, NASCAR is back. The 2nd most popular sport in America(based on television ratings) behind football kicks off today. It will start at 12PM but the green flag will not waive until around 1:36PM, trust me that is not just a guestimate, it will start around that time. The Daytona 500 is NASCAR's Super Bowl, it is the crown jewel of the sport. Sadly it will be the 10 year anniversary of the death of one of the sport's greatest drivers Dale Earnhardt. On the other hand he would want us to celebrate the 53rd annual Daytona 500! I will be on the lookout for the new cars and their news speeds. This year we will be able to see cars going over 200MPH and a few other changes to the sport, more than just the new $20 million surface. Sit back relax and enjoy 200 laps of speed, maybe 200+ laps if there are multiple Green White Checkered finishes. That is the thing about NASCAR races,, you never know how they will end. I am giving NASCAR a Digit Up. I am not only expecting excitement today, but throughout the whole season.

...Sports

Such a great day for sports, sort of. Only 2 downsides; Jeff Gordan crashed and The Hawks finally lost their 1st game. But other than that the Vikings won, the Packers won, F1 is going to come down to 1 race to decide it all, etc. So I guess I will add on to it by finally showing this LeBron response video made by the great people of Cleveland. I found it humorous and honest and of course I am going to give it a Digit Up!

...Charlotte Motor Speedway

While watching NASCAR I remembered hearing about Charlotte Motor Speedway and Panasonic making a deal to build a huge video board along the back of the track. Huge may be an understatement sense it will be the world's largest. It is planed to be installed by next year's Coca-Cola 600. This is what the track's website had to say about it:

-At an incredible length of 200 feet wide, standing 80 feet tall and weighing 165,000 pounds, the video board will cover an expansive 16,000 square feet and be located between Turns 2 and 3 along the backstretch of the legendary super speedway. Fans seated throughout the front stretch from Turn 4 to Turn 1 will have clear viewing angles of the gigantic board that will feature 720P high-definition visuals illuminated by more than nine million light emitting diode, or LED, lamps.

Sounds massive. If you are familiar with sports then you will know that currently Cowboy's Stadium houses the largest board, but after this goes up that will be yesterday's news. The one is Dallas cost $40 million, but no word yet on how much this one will cost. This just further inspires me to build a massive house and install a television even larger than this one, which is possible. I am giving this news a Digit Up.