Shake & Bake

The wife and I are going to Talladega this weekend. You read that correctly – we’re going to Talladega. A very generous and well connected individual has invited us along to the race for the weekend and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

This actually reminds me of a brief side story: In my second week of work I was on the phone with someone, trying to put them in contact with one of our contractors. I knew the contractor’s first name was Cal, but on the spot I couldn’t think of his last name so I just said the first thing that came to mind – Cal Naughton. It took me another 20 minutes to realize that Cal Naughton is John C Reilly’s character, opposite Will Ferrell, in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Oh well, everyone needs a little Shake and Bake in their day.

At any rate, let’s face it – I don’t know shit about NASCAR. Hell, I don’t know shit about car in general. So in an effort not to be outed as a complete neophyte, I’ve been talking to all my buddies that do know shit about NASCAR and reading all kinds of stuff on Wikipedia in order to cram as much information into my head as possible. Still, I’m basically a completely inexperienced fraud going into this. I feel like Sarah Palin.

Although, the worst that can happen to me is some driver dies in a freak accident before the race and I'm the only one in the entire crowd that fits in his driving suit so I suddenly find myself behind the wheel of his Chevrolet when my only racing experience has been video games at the arcade, though I can hear a race track from my house if that counts for anything, and somehow I miraculously figure out how to turn the car on AND miraculously get it moving with the help of some very smart and influential advisers in the pit crew, but it doesn’t matter because inevitably at the first turn I’m going to wreck directly into the wall at 150 mph in a glorious ball of flames causing a 37 car accident that results in the cancellation of the race and a billion people in NASCAR nation put me on their shit list and dedicate the rest of their lives to hunting me down like a yeti in the wild.

The worst thing for Palin is, her race car driver is 72 and one more case of melanoma away from the morgue, her race car is the United States of America and her glorious ball of flames is the world. But whatever; it sure will be fun while it lasts…

I’m not really sure how I just went from NASCR to politics, but suffice it to say, we’re excited as hell for this race like two adolescents, all precocious and full of wonderment, hopped up on a bunch of Mt Dew like a couple spider monkeys. Now we’re just praying to Baby Jesus for a good race.