ChumpCar World Series Race, Daytona

Friends participate in the ChumpCar races throughout the southeast US. Got a chance to witness this eccentric (to the point of deviant) American rite of manhood (cars ARE shaped like penises remember - well, sort of) at the ChumpCar World Series, Daytona, 2012. Cars must be cheap - REALLY cheap - under $500 - to be entered. Ahhhh - boys and their toys. But all in great fun. The cars are given inappropriately sophomoric names. (This was supposed to be the Flying Deuce - a scatological reference to the fecal fascination that psychologists claim remains with the male child from the age of two on (hence the car is painted slick medium brown). But the illiterate given the paint brush misspelled "deuce" and made it the Flying Duece - more Italian sounding, but much less the intended scatological (not that there was anything logical involved.)) I will admit here that I succumbed to the childish wordplay by suggesting that the Flying Deuce use a tagline that reads "Other cars fear it as their greatest enema!"

Driver Steve (yes, the same mild-mannered Steve I work with on a daily basis) is checking the interior that driver Blake (far left removing his helmet. NOTE: A helmet seems superfluous for this race in that a brain already damaged enough to consider participating no longer needs protecting.) has just vacated, before driver Greg climbs in for the last leg of the race. It is now slightly after 9PM and the race ends at 10. This insanity has been ungreenly burning fossil fuel since 8AM. That's right - 14 hours of going round and round. (To give you a concept of the seriousness of these events, one of the ChumpCar races is called the "24 Hours of LeMons." No, I didn't misspell the last word. And, believe me, LeMans it is not.) All that shiny stuff you see on the track is rain. Right again - they do not call off the race for rain. AND it is the rain generated by the bands created by Tropical Storm Beryl which is basically right over our heads. Once more you have the right idea - they do not call off the race for major, wind-filled, spiraling forces of nature. Well, after all, we had to replace the coming-of-age blood passage of spearing our own Mammoths with something!

More photos of the CARnage at my Flickr page. PS - I have yet to figure out how to arrange photos in a set so they go chronologically (another term that involves logic) in Lightbox instead of the reverse. Oh well, deal with it.

More about ChumpCar races - as if you needed to know.