The Daytona 500!

 “Boogity Boogity Boogity Let’s Go Racin’ Boys” is what you used to hear spat at you through your 27-inch Mitsubishi TVs side mounted speakers from the over enthusiastic voice of Darrell Waltrip at the commencement of every Daytona 500. There used to be so much enthusiasm and excitement, it really got you ready to watch cars go in circles for 500 miles. Every time I heard “Boogity, Boogity, Boogity” I wanted to call the neighborhood kids, go outside to my driveway, break the chalk out, and build a racetrack of our own. Growing up I had a red wheeled Razor Scooter with the wheelie bar around the back wheel for extra downforce that could just dust the neighborhood kids in an old fashioned Scooter 500… You thought the wrecks in NASCAR were bad you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen three kids' side by side on scooters headed into the sharp garage left hander, hit in oil spot left over from a Ford Windstar and go careening into the green and gold Waste Management trash cans, with only 3 laps to go… helmets would go flying into the neighbor's yard, kids would be hanging upside down from shelves by their K-Swiss shoe laces, handlebars would be lodged in places you didn’t even knew existed… it’s amazing we didn’t have major injuries from those scooter racing days… On second thought I do remember seeing my parents’ insurance agent Chris a lot…  Huh?... I also remember things would get very testy between the neighborhood scooter racers… “You put me in the wall you… you… you… BUTT MUNCHER!” “Did Not!” “Do Too!” Ahh the good old days…  

What happened to NASCAR? I feel like it has lost its allure… Maybe it’s the fact that I’m an adult now and the roar of engine doesn’t feel the same as when you’re a kid, maybe it’s the fact it used to be called the Winston Cup, well that’s probably a good change, we don’t need things sponsor by cigarettes, or maybe it’s the fact that the race begins with the most unenthusiastic, “green flag, and the… a… Daytona 500 is… a… underway?” “Boy ooo boy am I excited to watch this…” I said to myself as I laid down to take a nap. It could be the fact that the names of racers don’t resonate like they used to. What happen to guys like, Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jarrett, Ricky Rudd, Mark Martin, Terry Labonte, Tony Stewart, and everyone’s favorite Dick Trickle. These guys had personalities. You felt like they came up through the dirt and grim of backwoods racing, where they learned the ins and outs of a race car, unlike these posh kids we see today. Tony Stewart wasn’t afraid to be upside down, rolling over across the infield giving the middle finger to Jeff Gordon as he drove by. These guys were built differently.

Speaking of being built differently, the cars were different back then. They aren’t these fancy computer-generated, one lug nut, works of art. The cars from my era growing up were a different kind of art. Art that involved you getting confused about how the thing was still rolling down the track without a hood. Art that involved duct tape flapping in the wind. Art that involved a quarter panel held together by a piece of string and a wad of chewing gum from the right rear tire changers chaw-stained mouth. Art that involved the car not going into 2nd gear but who cares, it still ran didn’t it. Art that involved a driver having to hold the starter up because the engine was rattling so hard that it shut the car off. Even the actual art painted on the outside of the race cars was better back in the day. I saw a BuildSubmarines.com car leading the race on Monday, that’s right you heard me, BuildSubmarines.com, what are we doing with these sponsorships? What happened to the Dale Jr.’s red Budweiser car, Rusty Wallace’s iconic Miller Lite car, Jeff Gordon's rainbow painted Dupont car, Tony Stewart’s white and orange Home Depot car, Mark Martins red, white, and blue Valvoline car. These cars had a look about them, they had character. Some say cars aren’t alive but they are, they have faces like us, they take showers like us, they act up like us, they need surgery like us, cars almost have more personality than some humans I know… Cars back than just seemed to have just a little more character, the fact that you could fix them with a hammer and a piece of used chewing gum may have something to do with it, or maybe it’s just the nostalgia creeping up on me as I grow older, but things just seemed better back then.

 Now I can tell you one thing that is the same no matter the year, no matter who is behind the wheel or no matter how fancy technology gets. Every single one of these guys racing loses all brain cells with 10 laps to go in the Daytona 500. I may be alone in saying this, but the last 10 laps of The Daytona 500 might be, just might be, the most entertaining thing in sports. Everyone wants their name on the Harley J. Earl trophy, and they will do anything for it. But all that built up desire usually leads to some of the most dangerous, bone headed moves you will see, outside of rush hour on an LA freeway and it’s amazing. “The Big One” is the name that NASCAR broadcasting legend Darrell Waltrip gave to the largest crash during the 2001 Daytona 500, and the name has stuck ever since. I even saw them previewing it with around 50 laps to go, like they knew it was coming, but it doesn’t take a fortune teller to say that if you get 40 testosterone field guys running 3 wide for 50 laps something is bound to happen. This year’s “Big One” was no slouch, it happened right on que with 9 laps to-go, when William Byron’s tail got a little squirrely and caused him to run into the back Brad Keselowski which caused Brad to head up the track and take out 18 cars in the process. Smoke, sparks and sharp metaled field the air and it was wonderful. It’s one of the great things in sports to see that happen year after year. William Byron ended up winning the race after there was inevitably another crash on the final lap.

It's what you expect from the great America race every year, carnage, and more carnage. Its why the casual fan like myself loves it so much. Even with all the great names being retired, even with these new kids not having the same personalities, even with these new car’s full of technology, even with the classic paint jobs washed away, even with my childhood scooter being stored away in my parent’s attic somewhere, we still get to enjoy the wheel-to-wheel racing, car burning, sparks flying action of the Daytona 500. Even with all my complaints about it not being the same as it used to be I still love it. The Daytona 500 is like an old car, somethings don’t look the same, somethings don’t run the same, somethings don’t sound the same, hell it might just give up on you sometimes but its still your car and for some reason you still love the beautiful disaster that it is.

What Do We Do Now?

Silence, what is silence? According to Merriam-Webster, silence is, “the complete absence of sounds.” Silence is sometimes appreciable, especially when you have done nothing but listen to Lloyd Christmas say “hey you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world” on repeat for the last 2 hours because your 10-yearold cousin thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world… Sometimes silence is unpleasant especially when it comes to Sunday afternoons between the months March and August. “What do you mean I actually have to talk to my family and friends... Who wants to do that…” This Sunday is particularly hard, it marks the first weekend of silence since early September. Silence from the crashing of pads, Silence from helmets bumping into each other, Silence from the actional F-Bomb being picked up on the mic during a broadcast, Silence from Tony Romo saying, “I Don’t know Jim” for the 20th time during a telecast, Silence from your significant other yelling at you to get up off your ass and do something, Silence from your buddy complaining about seeing Taylor Swift for 28 seconds on one nationally televised game “do we really need to see her chugging a beer during the Super Bowl” “We don’t need too but 300 million teenage girls might want to…” Silence from Kermit The Frog and Andy Reid explaining how a State Farm Bundle works by using chicken nuggies and French fires as visual aids, Silence from the game we all love… Football… man I’m going to miss seeing that mustache perk up every time the word nuggies is said…

This happens every year, the end of the football season just sneaks up on us like an M-1 Abrams tank firing its cannons while rolling through an active mine field. I don’t know how I get blindsided by it every year, I know it’s coming but I do. So, what do we do now with our Sundays? Take the family out for a nice lunch? Nah… Maybe I Should take an art class, I think the teachers are very lenient towards beginners… “Brett this is the 20th stick figure with a mustache you have painted, Burt Reynolds has more features than just a mustache… Ummm I just don’t think Painting is for you…” I could go sit in a crowded movie theater with a bunch of people who love to chew popcorn with their mouths wide open? Nah… I got it, I should start cross country skiing and get my training underway for the upcoming Pepsi Challenge… Never mind just read it was cancelled due to the lack of snow… Since there isn’t enough snow to ski, ill break the golf clubs out and hit the golf course… oh wait it’s too cold for golf… I know, I’ll see if my online gaming friends want to play Destiny and run The Corta raid for the 100th time… “Oh you guys don’t want to play because I keep dying at the boss, and you don’t want to keep reviving me… Wait, you replaced me with Kevin? Kevin doesn’t even have the Gjallarhorn, he useless…” Holy Bleep, I just realized there is not a damn thing to do this time of year… Oh, Oh, hold the phone, I got it… I’ll spend Sundays cleaning the house and organizing my spice collection… Ok, soooo I got one jar of Thyme, one jar of Oregano, hold on… how many jars of lemon pepper seasoning do I have? 10! 10 half opened jars of lemon pepper might be too many… Maybe I should have gone through this sooner… Dear god what is happening to me? There must be something on TV for me to watch while I eat Cheetos out of my lint filled belly button. “Brett nobody else uses their belly button as bowl for snack foods…” “Well maybe they haven’t thought if it yet…” You know what… I’m going to unroll my news paper and look through the TV guide to see what is on…

Alright let’s take a look here… Primer League Soccer. I love that, I can watch that anytime of the year but that’s done by noon, I need to find something for the afternoon. Men’s College basketball? Its not March so who cares… Women’s College Basketball? Boy that Catlin Clark is something special, the other night I saw her hit a 3 from the logo to break the NCAA scoring record, that’s some pretty cool stuff! But it’s not March so who cares… Oh Boy! PBA Bowling is on… Yeah, I’m good… The Final round of the Genesis Invitational is on. Awesome let’s see how Tiger is Doing… Wait he withdrew because of sickness! Ok, Ok, that’s fine… Let’s see how Spieth is doing. He got disqualified for signing his score card wrong. That’s still a thing? What a dumb rule… We all know what score they got… Well not watching that… Now we’re talking FIS Free Style Skiing World Cup is on. I don’t know what that is, but I think I’m in. Ok so we’ve got one thing to watch in the afternoon. Oh, shoot I almost forgot… The Daytona 500 is on. Let’s go check out that… I love watching the start of the NASCAR season, especially the last 10 laps of the Daytona 500, when every driver seems to lose all their brain cells and decide to drive everyone off the road, causing the “Big One” in the process, just so they can park their car inside the winners circle. “Brett have you checked the weather in Daytona?” “No, don’t tell me it’s under a rain delay until Monday…” “Yep” “Perfect, you gotta love that!” Well, I guess I could turn on some skiing and see if I can merry all 10 of these of these lemon pepper seasoning jars into one… once were done with that we will work on the 8 jars of cayenne pepper I have laying around… I think I might have a spice buying problem…

Holy Bleep I’m Bored…

Waste Management Open… Week?

Do you hear that?... The sound of rattles from the tails of snakes coming echoing out of a barren desert, the sound of fans stampeding quickly to a seat just to get a glimpse of their favorite player, the cheers and boos of a very intoxicated crowd, the sound of your 5th Coors Light can being crushed on your forehead “Hey Mom, look what I can do…” “that’s very nice sweetie…” those sounds can only mean one thing its… Waste Management Open Week!  The Waste Management Open is a golf tournament that happens every year in Phoenix at TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course. Well, I wouldn’t call it a golf tournament I would call it a giant party in the desert at a pretty boring desert course… Well boring until you see the fortress that surrounds the 16th green. The PGA Tour decided to build a stadium like environment around a 163-yard bland golf hole to bring some life to the desert. What’s the best way to bring life to a desert? Create a spectacle that everyone wants to be a part of on Super Bowl weekend and feed people a bunch of booze and let them be as obnoxious as possible… I just wonder how the meeting went for that idea…

Set The Scene: A young man (let’s call him George) in a bright green suit walks into a board room with only one picture on the wall, it is a picture of the 12th hole at Augusta, the room is filled with old gray-haired guys in black suits- George begins to speak, “Gentlemen do I have an idea for you…” The old men all node their heads and say, “I’m Listening…” George asks, “You like fun, right?” the old men look around at each other confused and say “yes, yes… we umm… we like fun?... Is that what you called it… fun...?” “Now hear me out…. let’s build a stadium around the 163-yard Par-3 16th at TPC Scottsdale and pump I dunno…. let’s say 4,000 fans into the seats and feed them enough ice cold $15 Coors Lights that the town of Golden would get jealous… one of the old men interrupts George and says “Coors Light, Coors Light what is that?” George with a confused look on his face responses with “Beer? You know? In a can…” the old man shakes his head and says “Beer…? Beer…? At a golf event… oooh I would never allow such a thing… we only serve all the colors of Johnny Walker at golf events…”  George looking even more confused than before responses with “Ok…? Ok… Johnny Walker it is… I digress… where was I? Oh, Oh and we let the fans boo and cheer in the players back swings… and here’s the real kicker… We get a garbage company to sponsor the whole thing…” all the old men break out in raging mutters “That’s… That’s… outrageous how dare you disrupt the sanctity of golf…with beeeer and, and, garbageeeee… this is a gentleman’s game…”  George interrupts the muttering old men with “did I forget to mention… Waste Management said they would cover all expenses…” the mutters came to an abrupt halt and the old man at the head of the table said, “They said what now?... I mean… maybe… maybeeee… golf… could use a little living up…” George smiles, claps his hands once and says “Perfect! I’ll send the paperwork over by this afternoon…”

That’s how I Imagine that went… The Waste Management Open couldn’t have come at a better time for golf. Golf is in real rough shape right now, you have big name player after big name player leaving for the guaranteed money of LIV, you have tour players complaining about golf balls, you have PGA Tour players complaining about PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan, it's honestly just a shit show… But the people that are suffering the most right now are the fans… there isn’t room for one tour let alone two… All the fans want to do is watch all the best players in the same place. I’m not going over to the CW to watch LIV and I’m not going to watch the Valspar Open with the best player being Daniel Berger… You didn’t deserve that shot Daniel I’m sorry… But my much larger point is that it’s getting ridiculous. I understand players wanting to leave the PGA Tour, it seems poorly run and stuck in its old ways and truly when you think about it, who wouldn’t leave their job for less hours and more money… I don’t blame anyone for wanting to leave. People say it’s a moral conundrum, well I hate to break it to you, no matter what you do in this world there are going to be moral conundrums its business and we never really know where any money is coming from. Everyone at these large companies seems a little too greedy…

 But the greed maybe the inevitable killer of the sport as a hole… well… the insane water usage can’t help either… I was in Palm Springs not too long ago and that place was greener than a summer day in Minnesota. Something seemed a little off about that… But the main thing that may take down the sport of golf is the outrageous green fees that some courses have decided to charge thinking they are Pebble Beach… Hey you’re in the plains of Wisconsin not the coast of California, can we not charge $550 a round. Even the course I grew up playing has gotten big heads and decided to charge an insane amount of money, the regular everyday person or family can’t afford to play golf anymore. I get why things get more expensive, that’s just part of life, but we could find little changes to make it cheaper, like cut back on watering, so what if the course looks a little more brown than usual, at least you will be using less water and charging lower greens fees… Golf doesn’t need to be elitist by any means. Why is soccer the biggest sport in the world? Because all you need is a ball, Golf will never be that for that very reason, but you can try to find ways to cut costs to make it more affordable and more inclusive rather than exclusive. I have played some of the best courses in the world and some of the worst, but you know what’s the same at every golf course, no matter your skill level, no matter your putting style, it’s the challenge of getting better, its enjoying a day with your friends on the course, it’s driving the golf cart like your racing in the Monaco Grand Prix, its laughing when you bounce a ball off a tree on to the green, it’s the pure enjoyment of this stupid game called golf and that enjoyment can be played anywhere...

Now, I don’t know enough about the business side of these tours to talk about it in detail. But all I do know is that I don’t think I will be watching much golf on either tour this year… i'll watch the majors and the bigger tournaments but that’s about it… both tours need to find away to come together and make a product that involves all of them… I don’t care what the tour is called or where the money is coming from but golf kind of sucks when the best players in the world aren’t on the same stage together. This may drive giant ratings for the majors because of the LIV vs PGA Tour rivalry, that the media loves to portray or maybe it’s just because all the best players in the world are playing together… Is there an easy fix… yeah put them back on the same tour… but that’s easy to say coming from a novice in the business world. Whatever the world of golf decides to do to fix the issue, I’m sure there will be some complaints either way, like everything in this world, you can’t make everyone happy, everyone has an opinion on something, and they think their way is best… but Golf must do something. The Waste Management will be fun this weekend just because of the atmosphere but what happens after all the Coors Light is drunk and smashed over foreheads, all the fans stumble back to their cars and the grandstands get taken down? Your right back where we started with two tours that nobody’s watching…