NASCAR

The Daytona 500 is the first NASCAR race if the season and the Superbowl of racing! Although I'm a fan, it usually doesn't hold my attention during the whole race.. but this one was very exciting!

I especially wanted to see this year's Daytona because of friend of mine, Vincent Strader, is the artist who painted a memorial portrait of the late Bobby Hamilton Sr., which was presented to Bobby Jr. this last week. They didn't show the portrait presentation, but did have a great tributee to Bobby Sr. Bobby Jr. didn't run in the 500, but was on hand to receive the special presentation earlier in the week. Vince's brother, Tommy, is a partner in MotorSports Fine Art that presented it to Bobby Jr.

So, the race was full of exciting turns, and many accidents... including taking fan favs Dale Jr., last year's Daytona winner Jimmie Johnson, and Jeff Gordon out of the race. That wreck, which happened with only 3 laps to go, put Mark Martin in the lead. Kevin Harvick snuck up at the last 1/2 mile and inched his way passed Martin for the win. I was rooting for Martin, but was also glad that Harvick won. Kevin Harvick is Bakersfield born and raised! It's good to see some Valley blood win a big-time NASCAR race!! Way to go Kev!! Another accident had happened in the back, and I think Martin expected the caution to come out, which would mean that he would have won under caution. It looked like he slowed up just a bit, which helped Harvick sneak past him for the win. This would have been Martin's first Daytona win, in the many years that he's been racing.

The whole race, I was on the edge of my seat. Most of the cars going at speed of 140 mph, I couldn't believe how close, almost touching, these cars would get to each other. One false move, and WHAM!! An accident happens, which we saw many times during the race. I thought back to the many times I've seen someone going at high speeds down the freeway, or are so close to hitting my bumper, I start to slow to try to get the person to pass. Of course, we're not going 140 miles per hour, but still... one little bump could send us into a tail spin.

BTW- If you want to check out Vince's art, make sure you check out this pencil drawing he did of my parent's for their 50th wedding anniversary. It was awesome!!