Whose Shake Is This!!?

It’s not really the destination that’s important. It’s the journey. So going nowhere is not always a bad thing. Because no matter WHERE you arrive, well…there you are. And along the way, what you have uncovered, discovered, lived and relived determines where you arrive and when, but more importantly, who you are when you arrive there.

So many people get this all backwards and confused. This is not some hippy love-generation psuedo-zen nonsense. ((Although it used to be)) It’s honest philosophy that has been lost in the time-management business motivation and other euphemistic instant gratification psycho-babble. The journey is forgotten, an after-thought, and a mere means to a mostly mean end. As long as the journey is over with quickly along the unrelenting fascism of the Interstate, that seems to be all that matters.Fire up that GPS and get there NOW.

And there you are. But who are you when you get there?  And where are you really when all is said and done?

It’s all fine to have a destination in mind. That’s well and good. But HOW you get there…that’s the key that’s missing most often. The irony of all this is that most people, without realizing it, wind up going nowhere FAST, or somewhere FAST. But all was a blur, and where they arrive is more blurry than they realize. The only people who should be going nowhere FAST are Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Danica Patrick and the rest. Motorports is the ultimate metaphor of going nowhere fast. Although they all have the same destination in mind, Victory Lane, getting to Victory Lane is all about the journey.

A journey does NOT have to have a destination. The journey can be and of itself its own destination. So with that thought in mind, let’s go nowhere and see where we end up.

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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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It all came down to one night, one race. The final race for the Chase. The Chevy Rock N Roll 400 at Richmond International Speedway. It was a mighty and terrible race with the blood of giants coursing through the veins of some of the drivers while from others the blood of giants spilled across raceway as the checkered flag fell and hushed the terrible roar.

And it was over almost as suddenly as it began. 26 races all came down to one mighty earthshaking night. There was an encore for Denny Hamlin who won, at last, on his home track. For him, it was better than if he’d won the Daytona 500. He’s been hard to pin down this season so far…it wasn’t until just before his win at Pocono that I even realized he was solidly in the Chase. If the blood of giants has been coursing through his veins this season, it has been, for the most part, the micronized kind.

Another driver however, who’s had the blood of giants running through his veins his entire career, ended the race in a pool of that blood.

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