Daytona 500

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I had been looking forward to this day for weeks.  No, not Valentine's Day, but the Daytona 500.  Not that Valentine's Day isn't important, but this year it just so happened to fall on the same day as the Great American Race.  It also happens to be my father in law's birthday.

Mrs. Dickster happens to be a huge race fan.  Truth be told, I probably became interested in NASCAR thanks to her and my son and their interest in the sport.  So our plans for today were to meet the in laws at the restaurant for dinner at 6pm.  No worries, the race was to start at 1pm, so most likely we would get to see the race before heading to the restaurant.

With the blizzards of the past week, I have been able to watch a lot of the Speed Week activities in Daytona that lead up to the actual Daytona 500.  I was able to watch the Bud Shootout last Saturday night and the Gatorade Duels on Thursday afternoon.  Those events led me to think we were going to get to see some exciting racing this afternoon.  Since the forecast was for sunny skies during the race, so it looked like we would not have to worry about any rain delays.

Unfortunately, the racing gods were not smiling on me today.  A little more than half way through the race, they had to stop to repair a freaking pot hole on the track.  That delay lasted about an hour and forty minutes.  So much for getting to see the race in its entirety before dinner.  At dinner, I checked my Blackberry and discovered they had a second delay to repair the pot hole a second time.  This delay lasted 40 minutes.

To be fair, the race did have an exciting finish.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to watch it from where we were.  Congratulations to Jamie McMurray, who managed to hold off Dale Earnhardt, Jr to win his first Daytona 500.  Had it not been for the two delays, I could have seen it.  Oh, well, there is always Fontana next weekend.

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