The Look of NASCAR

By the title of this blog, I know that you are thinking that I’m going to write something about people who look like this:

But I’m not.  I’m sure I will another time, after I’ve had a few beverages.  What I’m talking about is actually the look you get when you tell someone that you (or your significant other) works for a NASCAR team.

I wonder if the teams down south go through this.  But here in Denver, once it comes out of your mouth, you immediately have to gauge the recipient’s reaction.  Because it will be one of two things:

They’ll either think it’s really cool.

Or they’ll think you just landed here from Planet Redneck.

Apparently I’m not the only one who has noticed this since when I brought up the idea for this blog to Mike’s oldest son, his response was, “That happens to me all the time!”  I, personally, discovered this early on, when Mike and I started dating.  When I would tell my friends what he did, I would usually get a thoughtful glance and a “huh.”  And then I would immediately have to rush in with, “But he has all of his own teeth and I’ve only heard him say ‘let’s git ‘er done’ once since we’ve been dating!”

Now, when I get that reaction from a stranger, I feel the need to explain in depth how technical the sport actually is (which usually requires me to start from the beginning about why it’s even considered a sport) and that it involves more than just pushing a button, setting up the cruise control, eating your Subway sandwich, and turning left.  And my “technical” explanation about how it all works (since I don’t understand technology at all and I think the operating system on my computer is electricity), is usually pretty sub-par.

When Mike and I go out, I can tell by his mood whether or not he wants to tell people what he does.  If we sit down at the bar next to a stranger and start in on a conversation, it’s pretty obvious by his body language when he’s thinking, “Please don’t ask me what I do.  Because that will require me to listen to your story about the race you almost went to in 1985 but couldn’t because your truck couldn’t carry all of your cousins and then I’ll have to agree to take you on a tour of the shop that you won’t remember you agreed to in the morning.”

I would imagine that if you live and work on a team anywhere near Charlotte, when you tell someone what you do, the first thing they’ll ask you is, “What team?”  But in Colorado, it’s usually met with, “We have a team?”  And then you have to get into the history of why Furniture Row is here in Denver in the first place and how you ended up here yourself.

This could take hours.

By then your date has left the conversation to go play pool with the people who work in the finance department of Century Link because further explanation on that job is not necessary and they have copious amounts of time to perfect their game.

Well.  Maybe that’s just me.

And the Countdown Begins....

For most people watching football these last few weekends, you probably got up to get a beer when the commercials started and didn't pay much attention to what was going on when the action broke on the field.  We were doing the same thing but somehow we managed to sit our beer-drinking behinds down on the couch and saw the announcement that made us cringe.

The upcoming Daytona 500.

For most race fans, the announcement of the Daytona 500 was something to celebrate (especially if you were rooting for an NFL team in the AFC West and, therefore, your football season was over around mid-November).  But for those of us who feel like the race season just ended and the start of it means the end of weekends as we know it...it didn't get us all that excited.

Personally, I would like to thank NASCAR® for delaying the season just a bit so that Mike will actually be home for Valentine's Day this year.  I know that this delay has race husbands all over the country wondering what in the hell they're going to get their significant others now that they can't surprise her with a romantic trip to a race track and a candlelit dinner in their campers.  But for the first time since Mike and I have been together...I actually get to see him physically scramble around to try and figure out what to get me for Valentine's Day.  Because the excuse, "I can't do much because I'll be at the track" just won't fly this year.
Can't wait to see his romantic ass in action.

And for those race husbands...sorry, guys.  Guess you'll just have to surprise her with a die cut car of her favorite team.  Every woman's wish come true.

The #78 team is doing what I'm assuming every other team out there is doing:  Never able to just sit back and relax during the 8 weekends they actually have off every year, they started working on the 2012 season the second the 2011 season ended.  Oh sure, about half the team took a few days off to get married at the beginning of the off-season (if you're a commitment phobe...don't drink the water at the shop), but as soon as they came back, it was back to the daily grind of making a car go at the speed of light.

They spent last weekend (yes, one of their precious weekends off) testing in...you guessed it...Daytona.  One can only assume that NASCAR was worried that teams across the country might get too used to sleeping in on a Saturday and form a movement to have race day moved to Wednesday.

But NASCAR shouldn't worry.  I can only speak for what goes on in my house, but thanks to 38 weekends of getting up at 4 AM (what are you NASCAR execs?  A bunch of dairy farmers or something?), Mike hasn't slept past 7 AM since I've known him.

So, now the countdown is on.  And we have a mere 5 weeks until the start of the season that never ends.  Mike and I will scramble to fit in a year's worth of a social life in the 5 weekends remaining.  And once that happens, we will see each other for about 4 hours every week because, between 6 kids and all of their activities, we are completely booked up on the days that he's in town.

Guess it's time to start our engines.

Photo Credit