Smoke and Mirrors

Are we home yet?
It was almost midnight Sunday night when we finally drove through the 'storms' that the expert Texas weathermen had been predicting would hit the DFW area all day. While the Texas Motor Speedway did an excellent job of post race traffic control, I guess they could not control the rains and high water on a few of the major roads surrounding the track. Like we normally do, we waited till about 9 o'clock to exit the Speedway grounds, only to be stuck in gridlock some 4 or 5 miles south of the track. So it was a long day, but once again well worth it. TMS truly does put on some of the best over-all racing events from the start of the racing weekend, till the final checkered flag.

Checkered Flags
Speaking of checkered flags, Stewart adds his name to the last of other 11 drivers to win a Cup race at this track. When will TMS finally have a repeat winner? Hopefully along time, as it surely is nice to see the variety of winners and what they had to endure to accomplish that. 'Smoke' had an great race car yesterday and for must of the race, the other 42 drivers were racing for second.

Thats Racin
Now I have never really been a 29 fan, but I have to defend the 29's 'contact' with the 10. The 10 exiting the corner was loose and really the 29 had little time (if any) to react to that under acceleration. I honesty wonder what the reaction would have been had it been the 6 car hitting the 10. I am guessing that it would be more like, 'of course Martin didn't mean to, it was just one of those racing deals'. As far as the post race crapolla between the 10 and 29 teams, it will be interesting to see the penalties that will most likely be handed out.

Bumps in the night
Had an 'visitor' Friday night (actually to be P.C., it should be called Saturday morning), at around 1:45 A.M. It seems that 'Mr Spotterman/Manager' decided that would be an appropriate time to 'talk'. Unfortunately, I had turned in for the night about 45 minutes earlier but from what I understand, there was an interesting conversation that took place. I honestly thought it was just some 'drunk Nascar fan', that we had possibly met from previous races wanting to stop by and pay a visit, so I wasn't about to lose any sleep over that. My guests got to see first hand the mental midget's handy work and got a giggle out of it though. Note to PR Dude: Nothing 'good' happens after the bars close, you should know that. If you want to have a live dialogue, that was not the time nor the place. I don't think you would appreciate anyone knocking on your doors at that time, not very professional or business like. I expected more, but once again, you fell short of those expectations. Had I known you wanted to stop by, I would have thrown another log on the fire and taken some 'no-doze'! The Virgina dealer plates was a nice touch though. Maybe next time.

Weatherman needed for the 11 team
Saw a couple of Denny Hamlin's post race quotes this morning. Especially this quote concerning the race set-up for the 11 car on Sunday. "We were counting on sunny weather." Now understand that even though they were wrong about the timing of the storms, the DFW area weathermen pretty much all agreed that the sun was not going to be seen much of the day. While it did make a brief appearance for about 30 seconds, that was about it. At least the 11 car salvaged a nice finish and still could be the dark horse Chase winner with a bit of luck.

Stoops has some major Cajones
Sure there was only a couple of inches the Sooners needed for a first down, but going for it on your own 29 yard line, on the road against a ranked team is pretty gutsy. But the Aggie '12th man', effected that play in an unexpected way. A&M had too many players on the field. Hats off to Allen Patrick's 173 rushing yards (and a called back 75+ yard incredible run). That makes 440 yards in three games that Patrick has, since taking over for 'AD'. Not bad for a kid that was recruited as defensive back. Had some good natured banter with some A&M fans RVing just a couple of slots from us. Next up, TTECH and that 'crazy offense'.