Milk And Coke For The Lady In Black
5/27/2014>
PattyKay Lilley
I bid you welcome gentle readers to a reprise of the "Double" of 2003, the Indianapolis 500 at Indy and the Coca-Cola World 600 at Charlotte. (I never gave in to calling it Lowes. It's Charlotte, plain and simple) This race report, like almost all of them, features commentary by my alter ego, the irascible Lady in Black. I realize she is new to many of you, and the drivers and their respective names contained within are old, so as always I'm including a link to the actual race, which you may reach by clicking right about here. Without further ado, please enjoy a day at the races with The Lady in Black.
Milk And Coke For The Lady in Black
by: PattyKay Lilley
Good
day, race fans. This is your raving reporter, the Lady in Black, coming to you
from the soggy infield of Charlotte Motor Speedway (Yeah, I know!) where I've
been mired since Sunday evening.
Sunday
was a full day of racing for this reporter. I guess you might say that I
"Did the double", but I got in more laps than Rubby
Gordon did. I was still around at the end of the Indy 500 when someone named
Jill the Fairy got to drink milk and shed tears.
I would
probably do more coverage on IRL (Insufficient Racing League) if I could
pronounce more of the drivers' names. Surnames such as Junky-row and
Castrate-never do not roll easily from this Southern tongue, so I happily leave
them to Bob Jerkin' and Dr. Jerry Punch-drunk. I really only went because I
love to hear Gomer Pyle sing.
It was
quite surprising to see a fly-over at the opening ceremonies for the 600, and
later in the evening to see a blimp floating overhead. For security reasons
(Code Orange - A national tribute to Tony Stewpot) no aircraft were allowed
over the Indian-no-place raceway, yet the air over
In true
Southern tradition, the race started under the yellow and green rags
simultaneously. That's a neat and colorful trick that I assume means boogity but do it carefully, since we're not really sure
that the track is dry yet. After three laps of that, the yellow went back in
someone's pocket and the combatants were allowed to get on with the war.
It was
pole sitter Flyin' Ryan immediately taking the
lead and just as quickly finding a hot dog wrapper to insulate his grill and keep things nice and warm. (About 250º) He continued
to lead and boil until lap 49, when the Home Depot Demon relieved him of the #1
spot and the hot dog wrapper as well. About that same time, some of the slower
warriors started heading for the pits for a Bud break and some badly needed
rubber. A full round of green flag stops and Budweiser soon followed. They
continued to circle counter-clockwise until lap 103 when the yellow announced
that it was raining. That flag soon turned to red. The rain didn't last long
but all the guys got to enjoy a prolonged refreshment break and Dale the Lesser actually got to come in twice. It was those old loose
nuts again.
They
were back on the track in about 20 minutes and at lap 121, we saw Booten the younger (The one you can understand) get a lap
back as Stewpot slowed from the lead with an engine problem. At lap 137, Germy Mayfail provided some entertainment, taking his Dodge hard
into the wall and retiring from the fray. Stewpot took it Home to the Depot
during the break, but the crew found nothing that they could fix. They
discussed changing the carburetor but decided to eat ice cream instead and sent
him back out to limp around until lap 159. At that point, he headed for
the garage and spent 31 laps worth of time getting a new carburetor and a pint
of Ben & Jerry's.
For a
while, the only amusement the fans got was two nearly out of control episodes
involving Jack of all spins. At lap 184 Terry Lobotomy sideswiped John
Spaghetti, causing him to carom off the wall. Both of those gentlemen wound up
in the pits, but there was no yellow and the race droned on. Shortly after
that, another round of green flag pit stops began. All race fans know that the
best way to be sure of getting a yellow is to have the leaders pit under green,
and this was no exception. Ricky Mudd was asleep at
the wheel and completely missed pit road so he tried to take a short cut
through the wet grass. The results were predictable! He completed at least two
360º spins and brought his water-soaked mount to rest on the track apron where
he had to wait for a push truck.
At that
point in time, only three drivers had not yet pitted, Bobby Lobotomy, the Bud
Stud and Groggy Biffle. Those three would be the leaders on the restart, but
there was a whole passel of cars on the tail end of the lead lap who started
ahead of them. They were still trying to sort all that out on lap 222 when
Kenny Wall-Ace's Stacker blew up and barfed oil all over the track and Groggy's windshield. Groggy hit pit road to have a tear-off
removed but hit it a bit too hard and got a speeding ticket for his effort.
Meanwhile, back on the track, Dale the Lesser went
skating into the turn-four wall while several others reclaimed the lap they'd
almost lost. Things got a bit hot in the pits when the Budwagon
came in with the rear brakes on fire. The New Man also had to make a stop to
report the theft of his right side window.
No
sooner were they back to the fun and games than
Lap 249
saw the Busch-League kid hit the pits by way of some of Humpy's landscaping.
(Haven't we already seen that movie?) Just a bit later, on lap 265, Ricochet
Craven's Tide ride sprung a leak in the engine, oiling down the track just in
time for Idiot Sadler to do a slide for life into the wall. There was also some
small contact between Toad Bodine and Jiminy McCricket
but they drove on. Groggy Biffle was back in the pits, this time for
overheating. Although we didn't know it at the time, the race was already over.
At lap 276, the gang was parked under a red flag for rain. Are you ready for
the next example of NASCAR wisdom? (Oxymoron of the day) The decision makers
waited about 15-minutes, until the rain had stopped, then called the race
complete at
Little
Junior Johnson was declared the victor, followed by Mutt Kenseth, Bobby
Lobotomy, Mongo (good dog!) and Flyin' Ryan. In
retrospect, it was a decent day of racing. The milk in Indian-no-place was
sweet and cold, but the Coca-Cola 414 could have used a bit of rum.
That's
exactly the way it was this Memorial Day weekend. Would I lie to you?
~LIB
Wow! How
time does fly gentle readers. The end of this article originally held an
announcement to those reading back then that our "Middle Shih Tzu"
Bandit, had passed away at only nine years old after a long illness diagnosed
as some sort of auto-immune disease... or as I've always described it, Doggie
AIDS. Assured by my Vet that it was not contagious in any way, but something
inborn in the dog, about three weeks later she sent me to see a litter that had
been brought in for puppy shots, and I brought home my tiny little Buddy at
about 7 weeks of age. Buddy turned 11 earlier this month. Darn,
and I still think of him as a puppy, which, God bless him, he will always be.
Time
now for our Classic Country Closeout. Last week was everything patriotic; this week we're
back to having fun. I readily confess to loving "almost" everything
Tex Ritter ever sang but it's a fact that he sang more for fun and laughs than
he did about love and marriage. This one had two hit versions come out at
roughly the same time, one by Tex and the other by Kay Kyser.
The one by Tex was far superior... in my estimation. That's really not
surprising, as Tex wrote the lyrics. Please enjoy Tex Ritter singing,
"I've Got Spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle."
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep on smiling. It looks so good on you.
~ PattyKay