Fast Cars In The North Woods

For the most part, this weekend’s vacation to the north woods of Minnesota for the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway was a great success. The racing was good, the weather was beautiful, and all the usual friends made it there. We met some nice people who also live in the Twin Cities area, and met some people from other places. That’s one of the best parts of going to the races, the people. But the best part, which never disappoints, are the cars and the speed.

Unfortunately, all the drivers that I root for were eliminated fairly early, so that’s too bad. I go for Tony Schumacher in the US Army top fueler, I’m not too partial to anyone in particular in the Funny Cars, but I always go for Warren Johnson in the pro stocks. On the bikes, I like Antron Brown.

I had the opportunity to shake Antron Brown’s hand this weekend, which was quite the thrill. I have a lot of respect for the guy, being a minority and making it to the top in racing is something that’s been unheard of in past years. But in NHRA particularly, that has changed. I’d say probably a quarter to a half of the drivers in all the divisions of NHRA are women and other minorities, and that’s pretty cool. NHRA is certainly doing something right, and NASCAR should ask them what it is. It didn’t occur to me until this weekend how diverse NHRA is. But I’m not just talking about the nice assortment of minority drivers, I’m talking about the fans, too. All types were there, even in a Scandinavian-dominated northwoods place like Brainerd. Why is it that you don’t see the same thing at many NASCAR events? Why has NASCAR alienated so many minorities, especially drivers?

You may recall that NASCAR hired Magic Johnson to co-chair their diversity commitee a while back. I doubt that it’s had any effect. It was a nice gesture, but clearly just an attempt to be compliant and to make themselves look good. For diversity to truly happen in NASCAR, it’s not really going to be up to the sanctioning body or a comittee. It’s up to the car and team owners, to stop looking only as far as the next good ol’ boy who tears up the dirt tracks in Indiana or North Carolina. There are plenty of good minority candidates out there, and I hope the big teams will give them a shot.

Ultimately, as I said, the weekend was a success. I did, however, get an incredibly bad sunburn and my allergies are all out of wack right now. We slept in a tent and it got pretty cold during the evenings, so I’m sure part of it is a cold, too. Sunday and today I’ve felt pretty awful, major sinus congestion, sore throat, and pretty much sore everything else.

But now it’s time to get everything back to normal. Back to work, back to doing all the other regular day-to-day things. Coming back from a vacation is always the worst, but I’ll get over it. I’ll have a photo album up from the races this weekend soon.

Something new on the site! Tonight I decided to make a new blog live, a blog devoted to a big topic I certainly have a lot to say about: NASCAR. It’s called NASCARblog, which you can find under the miscellany section or just go to nascarblog.dustinmarson.com to get to it. So if you enjoy my rants about racing, now you’ll get to see them more often there. I’ve actually been planning it for a while, just haven’t had much time for it but decided to commit to it tonight. Hopefully I can keep up with it.

Well, that’s all for now. See you again soon.