Figure 8 Crazy

The N's Cub Scout pack held the flag at the opening ceremony at the Colorado National Speedway last Saturday evening. Racing here is small time. The 24 car didn't have Jeff Gordon in it or anything. But The N loves to watch races so he was pretty excited about being able to go down onto the track with his Scout buds.

For me racing is okay, but I'm good for about the last 10 laps at Bristol. And that's on the television. Once the excitement of a spin out is passed you still to wait a long time for the green, green, green. And then you are lucky if you get 4 more laps before another caution goes into play. But I thought, hey, it'll probably be fun for a couple of hours anyway.

There were a variety of races. Some were stock cars much like the NASCAR cars that are on the big circuit. This is a NASCAR race track, just a lower (much!) tier of competition. A couple of the races I picked a fave car and routed for it (they ended up in 2nd place both times). Most of the time I was pretty bored with it all. It's just like the R says - "a bunch of bubbas going in circles". Except...

For the crazies who do figure 8 racing. What is up with that? It's like the normal crashing into the wall and spinning out is no longer enough. No! We want to see people racing through an intersection and hopefully really have a smash-up. This is the configuration of the speedway:

During the Figure 8 race the cars don't drive the oval, they drive the ends and through the crossover (which isn't actually over, there is no over). So it all starts just fine when the cars are all bunched up, but of course after the first couple of laps the fast guys get ahead and are soon over a half of a lap in front of the slow pokes. I watched this race with hands over my eyes, because I REALLY didn't want to see a wreck. That's not excitement in my book. I look away when I see ambulances and firetrucks at an intersection. I watch anything resembling a horror film through my fingers. The idea of a train wreck makes me want to run the other way. I won't even watch Jon and Kate + 8 (minus 1, or is it minus 2?) or any other reality type TV. Frankly, they scare and depress me.

The rest of the time at the track I just watched people and wondered. Why are you here? What pleasure are you getting from this? Is watching the tow crews pull a car out of the wall some sort of a highlight for you?

I just don't get it.