S.D. Grady

Well, that was fun. No, really! You have to admit that even with new rules changes, new teams, new double line, NASCAR applying different rules to different drivers and a rain-shortened event, you liked it. You can’t help it! You’re a NASCAR fan, and if there’s one thing that really drives this fact home every year, it’s the annual running of the Daytona 500.

So, the season is gonna suck because there’s a whole flotilla (I’ve counted 16 in the Daytona 500 entry list) of one-horse or new start-up teams. Right? Fans left and right are bemoaning the problems with field-fillers and all the trials that come with this lower echelon of NASCAR. But I don’t think it’s a problem. Personally, I don’t recall racing way back when where every team that started the race finished. In fact, in days of yore when the living legends of our sport were still behind the wheel, it was a weekly fact that about a quarter of the field would retire due to blown engines, exploding brake rotors and insanely loose cars. And just like today, the same 15 superstars competed week in and week out for the coveted Cup.

Normally at this time of the year, I’m hovering at the TV set in total anticipation of the pre-race countdown. I hunger for glimpses of new paint jobs, the familiar ring of the announcers’ voices, and the reassuring flutter of a green flag in the February afternoon. But this year is different. While the offseason plodded by to the tune of Christmas carols and depressed shoppers, our nation’s economy bit the big one. Big banks ate little ones, Detroit’s Big Three turned into the Three Blind Mice… and companies stopped spending altogether.