February 28, 2006
Cars suck.That's what I always say.
And although the crashes can be impressive and the 12 second tire changes can be enthralling, I do not make it a general practice to watch NASCAR...
Until this weekend, that is.
The Boy and I went to the bar on Sunday, the one formerly known as Bristol County. It's a local place where Two Wheel Tuesday runs on at least five screens in the bar and one can request the bartender to crank up the volume without offending other patrons. It's a place that I knew would be more than obliging to change one of the televisions over to Speed TV if I asked nicely enough -- despite the three-hour NASCAR race that was currently keeping the attention of most customers.
Cars suck. We wanted motorcycles.
But the bartender had to mention that they were running a raffle for the NASCARs and so I have to admit that I found my ear bending in her direction.
I love gambling. And it was free.
The Boy and I each grabbed a chip out of a small round tin that the bartender was holding. Each chip had the number of a car on it and, at the end of the race, if your cars wins, you get a prize.
I love prizes, too, so this whole lefty-left car thing was beginning to look up.
"I really don't know anything about NASCAR," The Boy commented, "but we can give it a whirl."
He picked number 17, Matt Kenseth, and I had number 88, Dale Jarrett.
"Oh yeah!" sparked The Boy, "Kenseth is good! He has a Ford and his crew chief is Rob Reiser."
So much for not knowing anything about the cars. The Boy began spewing off information as though it were first hand knowledge from his own NASCAR days.
But the fact that his car was running in the top five by the 3,567th lap had nothing to do with the luck of the draw.
The Boy had my ass on his side.
A little rub, a little tug and a little grope never hurt anyone and I felt it necessary to comply for the sake of the game.
We had Butt Luck on our side.
Although we had finished our highly nutritional dinner of nachos and buffalo wings, we decided to endure the last legs of the race. Kenseth was in the top five for the duration of the race, leading 23 laps out of 251 (yes, they added one). My guy was somewhere back near twenty and never garnered a higher position than 12th.
The Boy won.
A ten dollar gift certificate and a NASCAR frosty cup with little NASCAR chocolates inside. A woman across the bar cheered as though we had just won a trip to Cancun and, just for spite, I mentioned to her that we didn't even like cars.
"We came here for the two-wheeled race, actually."
Cars still suck. But winning is cool.
Especially when one can chalk it all up to my very own Butt Luck.
Good butt.