Rules of the road do not apply

It's 5 p.m. and I just got back into the media center after a couple of laps of the garage.

You can't walk in the garage for the people, but that's nothing new. In the areas outside the garage itself but still in the infield, it's hard to walk for all of the golf carts running around and it's hard for the golf carts to get around for all the people.

I still don't know when the golf-cart proliferation started in this sport, but it is way yonder out of control. The thing about them is that the people driving them normally don't think rules of the road apply to them. A guy will be standing there with his hand up stopping traffic and people in golf carts will drive up to the front of the line and try to drive right past the guy holding the cars up.

Of course, there's also the rules of race track pedestrians. Anything paved is a sidewalk and people who like four-wide racing think they have to walk four-wide, too.

I just got back from an interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for a story for next week's Coca-Cola 600 coverage. I think it was very good. I'll give you one tidbit from it. Dale Jr. is a huge fan of the TV show "The Office." He said that he'd quit racing tomorrow if he could get a job selling paper in Scranton, Pa., for Dunder-Miflin.

I am trying to get to the press box in time for the burnout contest that's supposed to begin at 6:20 p.m. It might take me that long to get my stuff raked up in a pile and get around the track.

If I only had a golf cart.