Happy Halloween!

Last year was my daughter's first Halloween out trick-or-treating. Mom and dad did most of the work while she hung out in her stroller. This year was different. Now that she's two, she walked most of it and took the candy happily from all the houses we visited. But she didn't get it at first. I think she thought we were visiting people because she walked right in to the first couple of houses and made herself at home. What a ham. :-)

Chase Race # 7: Atlanta

I can't believe Carl Edwards won at Atlanta a second time this year. That car was fast all day. Even when the 8 car was putting up a 10 second lead on the field, the driver and team of the #99 stayed calm and focused. A few adjustments later and that car was a rocket ship.

Best Moment of the Race: Kurt Busch crashing and eliminating any hope of repeating as champion. I know I breathed a sigh of relief...after I finished cheering for his misfortune, of course.

Championship Prediction: Tony Stewart will win the championship this year. Jimmie Johnson hasn't been as consistent and Ryan Newman is fading. I expect to see a lot of orange at the front of the field for the rest of the year.

Current Read

With the announcement of a "Batman Begins" type restart to the Bond franchise in 2006, I decided to pick up a copy of the first Bond book ever published: Casino Royale. Forget everything you've heard and/or seen in the Bond films. The literary Bond is so much more.

Ever since the cold war ended, the Bond films have gotten more ridiculous and over-the-top with villains and plot lines. They say they are going back to a "From Russia With Love" (the second "official" film) type spy film. My suggestion: if you haven't seen that movie, watch it; if you haven't read Casino Royale, read it. There's a little bit of something for everyone and if you hear a mention of Bond and think of movies like Moonraker and Diamonds are Forever, this will change your perception of that character completely....and for the better, in my opinion.

Next book: Live and Let Die...and after just a single chapter I can see that the film did Fleming's work little justice.

The Psychological Side of Racing

Tied atop the Nextel Cup standings, Jimmie Johnson's crew chief decided to play headgames with Tony Stewart to gain an advantage going into last Sunday's race at Martinsville. Apparently he was trash talking the 20 team during the final practice. It wasn't much in my opinion, but the announcers talked it up throughout the coverage. In the end, Tony dominated the race, but finished second...still gaining 15 points on third place finisher: Jimmie Johnson. This reminded me of another "psychological" battle for the championship in 1990.

One race to go in the championship...Dale Earnhardt held a slim 6 point lead on Mark Martin. Both teams show up for a three day test session at the track the final race was to be held. Earnhardt took his car for a handful of high speed laps and then parked the car....loaded it back on the truck and took off for a hunting trip. The point was to worry Martin's team by showing such confidence in the car and its setup, that a full test wasn't necessary. The tactic worked and Martin's team was worried. They tested six cars and decided none of them were fast enough. Fearing that Earnhardt's car would be faster on race day, they borrowed a car from another Ford team. The result on race day was that Earnhardt finished third while Martin's team struggled to a 6th place finish. Earnhardt won the championship by 26 points.

That was the first NASCAR race I had ever watched. I knew nothing about either driver going into it. With such a close battle for the championship taking place, I decided to pull for one of the two drivers competing for the title. I picked Earnhardt. I'm still a fan today.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

There are probably trillions of bytes of precious storage space on the internet devoted to blogs that no one cares about or ever reads. So what's a few hundred more? That's my justification for this blog. My goal is to have at least 3% of it be "somewhat" (inside joke) interesting. Lofty goal, I know. What will I be posting here? My comments and thoughts on just about anything: NASCAR, my car, Poker, the weather, politics and misc. junk that only I care about. Help me achieve my goal of 3% and read on!