Seeing a Ford in victory lane made me reflect on the value of winning the top race in NASCAR. Top as in most prestigious and unless anything has changed in monetary value as well. Value in not only the race purse, but don’t forget all the new sponsorship opportunities for the continuing saga of image rehabilitation of one Kurt Busch. I wish him well, glad it was in a Ford, and glad he didn’t hurt his former girlfriend.
Before I start, I must compliment Mrs. Decarlosdanger for her embracement of the NASCAR season. We watched the race in the garage with friends and she fed us and made sure that not a drink remained empty. I am one lucky man.
What a wreckfest the race was. Five of the forty vehicles that started the race had no damage on them. To me it reminded me of a race on Iracing.com of which I have been both the initiator and collection of damaged vehicles caused by others misjudgments. Noticing the wreckfest on TV I took note as I prepared to race the Michael DeCarlo racing entry into the Iracing.com last rendition of the Daytona 500 which occurred at 7pm MST 26FEB17. My Ford was sponsored by NORML fitting for Daytona as I prefer to drive more on the high side of the track. Thinking of getting a Tradiningpaints.com paid subscription and putting the decarlosdanger.com logo on it. But as of now the juice just isn’t quite worth the squeeze which means that a sponsorship opportunity exists.
Back to value, the value learned from the race was that it was ok to hang out in the back, it was ok to go a lap down early, there were going to be plenty of cautions, cautions breed cautions at 195 mph, each caution has a lucky dog, don’t be the caution and you can be the lucky dog. Mission accomplished.
I was in a field of 36 other racers from around the country and perhaps the world. Nearly 900 users registered to run the Daytona 500, keeping the racing better the participants are grouped by talent level. The talent level is determined by an algorithm call Irating. It is a mathematical formula that is more or less a point system that has many decimal places and measures prior performance against mutual competition and competitors of those competitors as well. Out of the 24 different races based on that established ranking system I was placed in race number 14. So lower end of the middle of the pack or top tip of the port a pottie pyramid of drivers who are race fans and do this as a hobby. So in the race ranked 14th based on competition I was car 35 of 36, same numerology in ranking drivers based on prior performances. I was field filler, all those cars who on a weekly basis have no reasonable ability of winning, but on the big stages of Daytona and Talladega, anyone and everyone have a chance of winning.
After watching the initial times ran in qualifying and seeing how close they were and which car numbers were congregated together, I chose to not qualify and start in 35th position. Back row view for me would be fine seeing them bounce off of themselves in turn one all by themselves, there were after all 200 laps. I dodged them pretty well for the first 50 laps. Improving my position to just outside the top 20 after the first two cautions. However, I did bounce off of the turn one wall on the restart and dropped to the back, catching the draft of a damaged lap down car. It slowed my decent but didn’t arrest it, I went down a lap to the leader about the 105 to go. Catching another caution I was able to get the damage on the right side of the NORML Ford, it was a whole 8 seconds of repair, but it brought life back into the Ford.
Taking the wave around on a BIG gamble with around 80 to go as I only had 15 laps worth of fuel left in the tank. But, just like the big boys, when you group up folks it just seems to the recipe for a wreck. I got the caution to get back on the lead lap in 15th position.
I finished in 5th, should have gotten at least fourth as the top 5 were running nose to tail entering turn 4 when we collected ourselves in the action of attempting to win. I will take a top 5 in any 500 mile race.
It’s about Value in everything we do in life. Increase our personal Value and life tends to take care of itself. It’s when we refuse to do this single action or just fail to realize it all together that gets us all dirty in the end.
Remember by the time your paycheck arrives to you the value of it is already depleted since more money is always continuously being printed increasing the supply and diminishing the value of the dollar.
There endith the rant…….