Monday, February 25, 2008

It's Midnight Cinderella...

I begin writing this at 12:07 AM EST on the Sunday night of the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway (and no, I will probably never call it by its new name, the Auto Club Speedway.) Apparently, NASCAR has decided that they will run the remainder of the race beginning at 1:00 AM EST.

Uh... WHAT????

I'm what you would call a DieHard NASCAR fan. I've done some pretty dumb things to watch a race in my day. In middle school, I got my parents to sign me out of school for two straight days to try to watch a race at Talladega that eventually got moved to two weeks later. Yeah, I left school early for two straight days to watch a race that never happened. All throughout college, I've skipped class to watch rain-delayed races. I even skipped class last week to run the board for the Gatorade Duels at Daytona.

I remember a Coke 600 from about 10 years ago that got rain delayed and finished around 1 AM, but never has NASCAR decided to screw the people on the east coast like they have tonight. It'll be 10:00 PM PST when the race resumes, and 1:00 AM EST. I just don't get it anymore.

I might stay up or I might not. I don't have to be in class until 1:oo tomorrow (or later today if you want to go that far) so I could just stick this thing out, assuming that my local FOX affiliate actually reverts back to the broadcast from Fontana here in a little bit.

I could do some homework... no, we all know that's not gonna happen. I could take a little nap and set an alarm for 12:55. I could go fix a sandwich or maybe play some videogames.

Or, I could sit here and type this on my laptop and wonder why I'm not surprised that NASCAR will do whatever it takes to make the fickle Southern California racefans happy while causing their "core" fan base to have to watch highlights on the 7:00 AM edition of SportsCenter tomorrow morning.

BTW Brian France, CEO of NASCAR: Your "core" fan base went to sleep an hour ago.


Update to the Saga...

1:00 came and went and with the announcement that it would be another hour before NASCAR made a decision, so I went to sleep. In the end, NASCAR decided to run the race today at 1:00 PM EST. That's great. I appreciate that. Too bad I'll be in class until 2:15. Tbe Nationwide Series race will follow the Auto Club 500, so maybe I'll get to watch that.