Whose Shake Is This!!?

Last Sunday, at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana CA, the real 2010 NASCAR season began. The Daytona 500, after all, is a spectacle, an aberration, a crap-shoot, and where one finishes there is a no indication of future performance. ((Yes, I’m talking to YOU Derrike Cope)). The Auto Club 500 last Sunday was a more accurate race for soothsayers and pundits to begin with in the their various divinations of how the season will unfold.

Jamie McMary continued his Daytona momentum by grabbing the pole, but the air rushed out of that balloon as he finished a more expected 17th. Now don’t get me wrong, the move back to Gannasi is a good thing for McMary, and he will have some good finishes as the season rolls on. But now the real season will begin to sort itself out. LasVegas will be the next puzzle piece to be fit into place.

At Califormia, the Roushketeers, with the exception of Dave Ragan ((23rd)), did well. Matt, with new crew chief Todd Parrott, finished 7th. Biff was 10th. The Carl ((who just had his first kid this week, a little 8 lb 4 oz canned ham named Anne—congrats to Carl and his wife)) finished 13th. My new favourite lout Kevin Harvick is getting himself in stride and finished 2nd (more on that after the bump). And the Jeff Burton (3rd) bandwagon is starting to get fired up. Monsieur Bowyer finished 8th. Nice to see all the Childress boys in the top 10, at least for one descending series of moments. Kurt Bsch had a solid car….Tony Stewart finished strong, as did Joey Logano ((who rebounded nicely from Saturday’s little spin through the weed)),  and Mark Martin, and all were top 10.

But as is well known, there are machinations, and the there are evil machinations. There is ability, and then there is damned ability. But none of those count for much more than what they would ordinarily count for when you also have luck.

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No matter how good or satisfying the results were (to some) at Kansas this past weekend, no matter that Smoke won the Price Chopper 400 and Mark Martin increased his lead a bit….no matter how good that might be…the spectre of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus still looms over all of them. Smoke and Old Man Martin and even freakin’ Juan Pablo Montoya are tiny precious little creatures who will ultimately be swept away. Martin’s tenuous 18 point lead, Smoke’s big win on Sunday….all moments in a sun that is soon to be snuffed out.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

To be honest, I’m getting a bit tired of this. After all, why wait for Thursday night to write some almost half-hearted post about an exciting race at a track that I truly enjoy (Kansas Speedway).  It’s almost as if after 364 un-birthdays, with un-birthday cakes and un-birthday presents, the party is no longer very partyful. That’s what it feels like. Despite anyenjoyment or fun one can momentarily feel, there is also an impending feeling of doom…. The Wicked Witch of The West, and The Queen of Hearts, and the Jabberwocky all rolled into one.

`Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.‘

One can only hope…

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I’m not quite sure what possessed me to even THINK about doing this, but since I hardly have an original thought in my head, it does not surprise me in the least, despite any semblance of judgement, better or otherwise, that might reside somewhere within me, albeit deeply buried, that I actually attempted this at all. Also, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t pursue this quixotic jackassery in the privacy of my own home, fat white ass in my recliner with a 42 pack of DAB and a bag of pork rinds. Nope. I grabbed my notebook and my pink pen and made straight for Mt. Horeb’s very own FIREHOUSE BAR to capture the Brickyard 400 in the relentlessly smokefilled puerililty of the descending series of moments that loom larger than life in that little home away from home on the corner of 1st & Front Street in downtown Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.

I will also say straight out that I am stealing the concept of this from blog好き, which is arguably one the best anime bloogs out there. Do you honestly think I could come up with this on my own? Of course you don’t. Also, since Twitter has suddenly become all the horrible rage, you might think that this is a relatively new and trendy phonomenon. It is not. Jason, who published the aformentioned blog好き has been doing this for quite some time. My appropriation of the concept also has nothing to do whatsoever with the horrors of Twitter, and all that social networking dross.

As I said, whatever madness propelled me to do this will most certainly be revealed shortly.

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