Memorial Day weekend for me growing up was the official start of summer and the end of me caring about school and upcoming exams. Alice Cooper had it right with his song "School's Out For Summer". For the younger generation that reads this blog seeking to gain insight into my generation click the link or do what you do best - buy the song on iTunes or just Google it. I also remember it being an important weekend for racing - NASCAR and Indy car (open wheel).
As a result of my declaring school officially over, to celebrate Sunday was and still is the highlight of my Memorial Day weekend. Why? The Indianapolis 500 (The Super Bowl of open wheel racing) and Coke-Cola 600 (The longest NASCAR race of the season - really, just a reason to sell another hour worth of advertising), that's 1100 miles of racing and a couple of good naps.
Racing is much easier to watch these days with the invention of the DVR and live recording. I used to watch both races and not be able to fast forward (There was a time when you couldn't pause the TV to go to the bathroom or just hit the fast forward button. We did have VCR but you had to wait until the race was over to watch it. I know you are wondering how I survived. Trust me it was difficult and what made it more difficult was that we were the last house in Summerville to get cable. All my friends had the "fixed" cable boxes long before we had cable or a box - as a matter of fact, I am pretty sure by time we got cable you didn't need a cable box. It wasn't that my father wouldn't allow us to have it but because of the distance of our house from the road, the signal wasn't strong enough for the long run...finally, we did get cable - how did I survive without it for so long?). Now, I will watch some of the racing live and some off the DVR. To be honest, I am not nearly as big a fan as I used to of NASCAR (see earlier posts on turning 43) and the only race that matters in open wheel racing is the Indy 500. The only other reason to watch open wheel racing is the crashes because they are usually pretty intense. Instead of watching all of the boring race, you can catch the crashes on the local news (only sometimes because our local sports coverage is lets say less than desirable), Sports Center (but you have to watch an hour to catch the 3 minute story, if you missed it the first time around) or the Internet (quick, fast and you get right to the crash without all the other talk). It is amazing to me that you can hit a wall going in excess of 200mph feet first, you can fly through the air, potentially landing upside down and sliding down the track on your helmet and walk away with no injuries or minor injuries. In case you missed it, the trifecta happened at Indy near the end of the race - a driver drove over the rear wheels of another car, flew over that car, hit the catch fence (as it the fence caught the car and kept him from flying into the stands), disintegrated and fell back onto the track, didn't get hit by another car and he only had a broken leg. Trust me you need to see this because you can't describe it with words. Check out the still photos and video here.
Since, he missed church last Sunday, I am pretty sure he will be in church this Sunday and I am pretty sure he will need a new drivers suit.
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