"Gentleman...START YOUR ENG...Hold on."
8/5/2003 2:03 PM
Spent a good weekend with some friends. My "one friend" Horb invited me to a CART race at Elkhart lake for the weekend. I really know nothing about the sport except that Mario Andretti dropped out of alot of races. But honestly with the length of his career also with the amount of wins he had...I'm sure I'm completely wrong. I just remember watching Indy growing up and hearing "And Mario is slowing down..." But I did learn alot in short amout of time....the cars, the drivers and I learned that Mario's son is a real dick. That seemed to be the general opinion of any fan I spoke with over the weekend. "I think Tracy has a real chance and Michael Andrettis is a dick" or "Bathrooms are up the hill...oh and Michael Andretti is a real dick." So at least have that much down. Although I saw alot I really DID'NT see a race. It rained all Sunday afternoon and the race was postponed for about 3 hours. They gave no announcements about what was going on so we eventually just gave up and went home. I liked the CART racing...well the practice and the qualifying. The fans seemed very dedicated and intuitive about the race. Personally, I never "got" stock car racing. Its one long exercise in stomping the gas pedal and making a left hand turn. That coupled with the fact that most fans of NASCAR have frightened me on very deep level. You happen to mention and like Pavlovs pooch they start howling. Plus I never got why everyone hated Jeff Gordon. He was the top of the field and if you mentioned his name you got a look like you just said "Have you heard the new INSYNC cd? Its really good." I never understood how fans of a sport could hate some one so much that was the best at his sport. But then again...I never knew what a dick Michael Andretti is. Something else I noticed about the CART fans. They are a pretty subdued and courteous bunch. When we were sitting and waiting for the race to start people would wander by and look at the track. It was no big deal...there wasn't anything going on. What I did notice was everyone of them turned around and looked at us sitting and said "sorry" and moved on. I really didn't see any bad behavior. I saw a few drivers and they all made time for the fans they came across and the fans seemed to give them a wide berth. All celebrity should be so polite. Plus there is something just aesthically pleasing about drinking from a pony barrel all afternoon long. So I'm a fan. But as with most things that I'm a fan of...its future seems in doubt. Money problems and low turnout is hurting CART. So probably just when I get a handle on it the league will crumble. But until then...Books on tape.

More on that later.