Gentlemen...Start Your Engines. Ladies...Start Your Corkscrews

Well.  It’s here.  As the gentlemen start their engines…their significant others prepare themselves for a long season of praying for a decent National Anthem before each race and gritting their teeth while watching that stupid gopher run across the screen (which, incidentally, reminds me a lot of the Quiznos rodent, another Marketing move I have yet to understand). 

I’ll never forget Mike watching a race with me when he was off the road, recovering from surgery last year.  After the first 30 minutes of “pre-race festivities” he looked at me in disbelief and said, “Is this what you watch every weekend?”

Yes.  But not always by choice.  Mainly because if I don’t and he asks me, “Can you believe what happened on lap 5,098???”…I feel bad if I don’t have an answer for him because I was watching a particularly riveting House Hunters International.

So on February 16^th, we will bid them all farewell until November like we’re sending them off on a freighter to China.  And when the season is done, we will look at them, after 38 weekends on the road and say, “And you are…?”

(Side note:  I actually did that to my late husband once when he came home unexpectedly from a long business trip to surprise me.  He rang the doorbell and I answered the front door and said, “Can I help you?”  He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Cath.  It’s me.”  Not my proudest moment as a wife.)

Anyway, just like every couple who has someone on the road with a NASCAR team, this is a true test of if you have what it takes to make it for the long haul…because you’re basically in a long-distance relationship.  You live on phone calls (with bad signal if you are unfortunate enough to have a cell phone carrier other than Sprint because they’re just plain mean about blocking everyone else), texts, and hugs that smell like burnt gear oil when they come home late Sunday night (a smell that will stick around until they leave again…nothing gets that shit out).

The other test as a couple comes when they come home in November and mess up your schedule (and can’t figure out why), add to your grocery list, and are just generally around all of the time when for the other 9 months of the year, they were constantly absent.  At this point, you’re either grateful for their return, or start texting their magical travel manager (who will remain nameless), asking her when in the hell the season is starting up again. 

Either way, leaving or going, takes some adjustment.  As with anything in life, you tend to get into a routine no matter what is thrown your way.  And I’m hoping that this year, my routine will include some sort of Women In Support of NASCAR Operators or WISNOs (sorry girls…I tried to make it WINOs, but I needed that S in the middle.  Which kind of makes us sound like drunks with bladder problems, now that I look at it).

Believe me.  We'll be a lot more supportive after a few glasses of wine.



Photo Credit:
I actually "stole" this photo from another woman's blog who has a few short stories under "Wine Trip Chick."  Click here to get her NASCAR Sangria recipe.