On The Road Again

Made a quick hotshot run to Midland yesterday. Cha-Ching! That's a quick way to knock out a payment on the Mercedes and spend a beautiful day driving thru Texas at the same time.

Win/Win

I also got a bonus out of the deal. When I jumped on I-20, 4 Richard Childress Racing trucks went by and I fell in behind Kevin Harvick's rig. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to take any pics and worse, I didn't have a radio in my pickup to talk to them. But it was cool to run in their convoy for a bit.

I was impressed with my GPS. I got instructions on how to get to where I was going, but they were pretty confusing. The yard was at the Midland Airport. THAT is one messed up place. Not sure who is responsible for drawing up the road plans on that place.  When I put the address in my GPS, it wasn't valid. But it gave me another address on the street and I chose that one. Lo and behold it guided me right to the gate.

Crazy Daytona 500

Oh I've seen fire and I've seen rain.

After being delayed 29 Hours and 45 minutes because of rain the 2012 Daytona 500 finally got underway a little after 6pm Monday. Almost immediately the crashes began with Jimmie Johnson, Trevor Bayne and Danica Patrick among those taking significant damage during a multi-car wreck on Lap 2. Patrick would return 56 laps down and finish the race. Johnson did not.

Jeff Gordon blew his engine bringing out another caution and with 40 laps remaining Juan Pablo Montoya was hurrying to catch up to the back of the pack following the pace car when something broke on his car sending him spinning into a jet powered track blower. The blower and truck pulling it burst into flames. The jet turbine dryer carries around 200 gallons of jet fuel and the truck around 50 gallons of diesel. On track firefighters were not outfitted to battle a fuel fire of that size and intensity. It took several minutes to contain the fire and now damage to the racing surface is a huge concern.

Updates to come.

Update 1: 9:23pm The safety truck and dryer were removed from the track with 2 "Gradall" forklifts, but the dryer trailer scraped the asphault badly. That is not an area where you want a dip in the road. Safety crews have told drivers to get out of their cars. This will be a lengthy red flag.

JPM was treated and released from the Infield Care Center. The driver of the safety truck was flown to Halifax Medical Center.

Update 2: 9:57pm NASCAR says race will resume in about 30 minutes. Tide laundry detergent being used to clean the fuel off the track.

Driver of the safety truck Dwayne Barnes is under observation at Halifax Medical Center.

During the Red Flag there was another explosion. This time it was on Twitter. Brad Keselowski becomes the first driver in NASCAR history to Tweet pics during a race. Drivers huddled around Keselowski who had carried his phone with him in his pocket. It soon became evident just how fast social media works. He started the race with 65,000 followers and picked up over 100,000 new followers in one hour! His total peaked at over 200,000!

 @keselowski Well, now Daytona has Juan less jet dryer...”

Update 3: 11:09pm Green Flag!

Update 4: 11:56pm Congratulations to Matt Kenseth, 2012 Daytona 500 winner!

Race recap courtesy of SportsCenter:

I'm Batman!

Uh, not so much. Who would have thought jumping off a cliff would be a bad idea?

Politics Invades Politician's Bedroom

This is what I get for using "Bow chica wow wow" already this week. I should have kept that one in the bag, because as Mr. Albo so eloquently demonstrates you keep the good stuff for just the right moment.
It's all about timing.

Sir Isaac Newton Wins Again

Updated: Welcome To NASCAR, Danica Patrick.

Danica Patrick was doing a great job until the last lap of Race #1 at the Duel at Daytona when Jamie McMurray got into Aric Almirola who in turn shoved Danica to the inside wall at 193mph. It was a massive hit, but thanks to the SAFER barrier and other safety measures she walked away without a scratch.

She will start 29th.

Tony Stewart won Race #1 and Matt Kenseth won Race #2.

UPDATE: Talk about the Comeback Kid! 24 hours after the lowest point in her NASCAR career, Danica Patrick turned a fast lap of 49.250 seconds, averaging 182.741 mph to win the Pole for Saturday's Nationwide race. She's only the 2nd woman in history to win a Pole in a major NASCAR series since Shawna Robinson at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March, 10 1994.

She just added quite a bit of cred to her resume.

Here's the starting order for Sunday's Daytona 500:

1. Carl Edwards
2. Greg Biffle
3. Tony Stewart
4. Matt Kenseth
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
6. Regan Smith
7. Marcos Ambrose
8. Jimmie Johnson
9. Jeff Burton
10. Elliott Sadler
11. Michael McDowell
12. Joey Logano
13. Kevin Harvick
14. Kyle Busch
15. AJ Allmendinger
16. Jeff Gordon
17. Robby Gordon
18. Ryan Newman
19. Jamie McMurray
20. Kasey Kahne
21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
22. Mark Martin
23. Brad Keselowski
24. Dave Blaney
25. David Ragan
26. Martin Truex Jr.
27. Aric Almirola
28. Kurt Busch
29. Danica Patrick
30. Clint Bowyer
31. Denny Hamlin
32. Bobby Labonte
33. David Gilliland
34. Joe Nemechek
35. Juan Pablo Montoya
36. Casey Mears
37. Paul Menard
38. David Reutimann
39. Landon Cassill
40. Trevor Bayne
41. David Stremme
42. Tony Raines
43. Terry Labonte

It was worth it

Several months ago I won a Surf City Garage car care kit during a call-in contest on SpeedFreaks. It's show quality wax and cleaners. I spent the last 3 days cleaning and waxing my SLK 280 just to pass the time and enjoy the sunny afternoons. I wound up putting 3 layers of wax and detailing on the Mercedes.

Tonight I got a craving for some vodka martini's but I was all out of olives, so I made a quick trip to Brookshire's. I pulled up, got out of the car and before I could shut the door a really good looking blonde about 20 years too young for me walked up and said "I really like your car".

I should have invited her to join me for a ride, but the conscience battle scene from Animal House was running thru my head. Instead I just said "Thanks" and walked away.

Needless to say, I should have listened to the guy in red. Instead, I'm drinking a couple extra martini's than I originally planned.

Well Done, Young Jedi Warrior!

From an internet forum I frequent. The kid kept his shit together when it mattered.:

I was flying to Houston to meet a friend in a rented Cessna 210 when the cockpit started filling up with smoke. I opened up all the windows and vents to get the smoke out, and then I declared an emergency and went to San Marcos (the closest airport).


 I lined up to land with the runway and tried to bring the gear down, but the gear wouldn't come down. I started pumping on the hand pump to get the gear down (which I realized was hot) and managed to get the gear down and land safety. All the firetrucks and stuff met me and I was happy to be on the ground.


I didn't realize until all the adrenaline wore off that I burned my hand trying to get the gear down because the handle was so hot. Turns out a hydraulic line busted and there was hydraulic fluid all over the place (cause of the smoke and why I couldnt get the gear down).


Really puts things into perspective when something like this happens, though. My hands are still shaking and my eyes still sting a little bit from the smoke. I had a few angels watching me tonight. 


I took a handful out of my luck bag and put it in my experience bag tonight, that is for sure .

Amazing story. You can see the streaks of hydraulic fluid down the side of the Cessna 210.
Here's a link of the condensed ATC audio for you aviation geeks.