Aren't you dying to know what I think about NASCAR?

This Sunday will mark the 50th running of the Daytona 500, which kicks off NASCAR's season (if you don't count the insanely reckless $1,000,000 winner-take-all Budweiser Shootout). Aside from my wife, I am the only person I know who likes NASCAR - perhaps because I live in a major city and surround myself with effete snobs like myself. I take a lot of flak for it - my friend Metroville likes to point out that the winner of a NASCAR race is almost always the guy who turns left better than any of the others. It's only fitting that I'm probably going to miss this year's 500 because I'll be serving as a groomsman at Metroville's wedding to a great girl he never should have landed in the first place. (Zing!)

To the people who feel that auto racing is not a sport because the driver is simply operating a machine, I say "Feh". I would imagine that it's at least as physically challenging to maneuver a 220mph Chevy-shaped rocket at an unceasing "AGGHH FUCKKK! HOLY SHHHIT!!" level of intensity with 35 other lunatics smashing into you than it is to swing a golf club or a bat - both of which are skills I admire, mind you. The "they're just driving" argument never held water for me. A finely tuned race car is an extension of the driver's body and reflexes, just like any bat, racquet or ski.

My personal fave (as well as my wife's) is Tony Stewart, whom Yahoo Sports recently described as "the most insane professional athlete not currently under indictment". I became a fan of Tony, oddly, before I ever watched my first race. Back when I was simply an effete snob (as opposed to an effete snob and Nascar Fan), I met eight of the top drivers when they visited the set of "Pyramid", where I was a joke writer for Donny Osmond (yes, I'm really that good). Seven of them were well-behaved, clean-cut young gentlemen who proudly represented NASCAR's squeaky image. The eighth was a rude, overbearing dirtbag who looked like he'd just rolled out of bed after a two-week bender. I liked him immediately. Tony is his own guy in a sport where most of the athletes have personalities that reflect the walking billboards they are, forbidden to say or do anything that might besmirch the good names of Tide, DuPont, Levitra, Jack Daniels, Auto Zone, Lowes, Anheuser Busch or the Army National Guard. Tony races like a madman. He'd probably turn down a Gillette sponsorship because it would require shaving. He spins guys into the wall at the slightest provocation. He gets fined nearly every week for some PR debacle or other, usually associated with outrageous f-bomb-laden rants on live TV. When he wins, he climbs the 50-foot chain fence next to the finish line and snatches the checkered flag, a stunt that will certainly kill him someday, especially if he keeps chugging champagne right before doing it.

So, to all of those who bash NASCAR without ever watching it, I suggest you get drunk on Pabst and tune in on Sunday. After all, twenty million rednecks can't be wrong. Unless they're voting, of course.