Sunday, March 19, 2006

Why this name

Boy, do rainouts stink.
A rainy track on race day is one of the most depressing places in the world. You know that all of the people who've worked to put together an event the size of a Nextel Cup race have worked thousands of hours to make it happen. Everything is set up for that day, and the logistics of making a stadium the size of Atlanta Motor Speedway work again the next day are staggering.
Anyway, now that my own blog space is up and running, they asked me to pick a name for it. I chose "Life in the Turn Lane" for several reasons and thought I'd just tell share them with you.
First, I have always been a huge fan of the Eagles (the band, not the Philadelphia football team). The first time I heard the "Hotel California" album was when I was a senior in high school and I loved it. I saw them on tour that next summer and have probably seen them 15 times since. "Life in the Fast Lane" is only about the sixth or seventh best song on that album, but it's still pretty dang good.
When I was a senior in college at North Carolina (George Mason? Sheesh.), I had a humor column that ran on Mondays in the school newspaper. And the title of that column was "Life in the Turn Lane." I called it that because I'm the kind of guy who always chooses the wrong lane in traffic.
Sunday, coming out of the infield tunnel at the track, I went into the second of two lanes going out because I knew I had to turn left at the main road. While I was sitting in the tunnel, the police decided to lead buses carrying pit crew members out of the track in the lane that had been used to let people come in. A bunch of cars and vans fell in behind them and suddenly there were three lanes going out.
So when I got to the top of the ramp going up and out, guess which lane got cut off and squeezed out? The "middle" lane that I suddenly got stuck in, of course.
That's the story behind the name.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all re Dale Jarrett's bumper - why do you think he should have been blamed for it flying off the car? It was Kyle Bush who did it. Next, why shouldn't Dale Jarrett try to keep Kennseth behind him - he WAS on the LEAD lap. Kennseth was wrong to say he was a few laps down. Jarrett never lost a lap through the whole race. Do you have something against DJ? He was absolutely innocent in the bumper issue and was in the right about staying on the lead lap. Let's be more concerned with the slap on the wrist Gordon got and why nothing happened to Kyle Bush or Stremme for all the rough driving. Nascar gets on my nerves lately.