Drunkblogging the 500: this is how we do

(All times Central because we will be in no shape to add an hour to anything by the time that this is over.)

2:20 - did the minister of choice just ask the Almighty to bless the France family during the pre-race invocation?

2:23 - Nicolas Cage is visibly hungover, a fact that the cowboy hat does nothing to hide.

2:25 - cars are off pit road; however, we're not starting drinking until the green flag.

2:30 - Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let's go drinking!

2:33 - DW just used the term "competitiors," which from context I assume is supposed to be a portmanteau of "competitor" and "cooperator," but I have no fucking idea how.

2:39 - funny commercial: Mad Max-ed out alcoholics chase the 8 car across the desert in pursuit of beer. Look for a Home Depot commercial featuring Tony Stewart in Children of Men during next year's 500.

2:43 - Boris Said gets into David Reutimann, spins, no one seems to have been affected on an existential level.

2:46 - Apparently the new Dodge Nitro is also an IED.

2:53 - The Tony Stewart-Dale Earnhardt Jr. Axis of Bachelorhood is in full effect.

3:04 - Lonely, unsatisfied early middle-aged women still want to fuck Kasey Kahne.

3:14 - Fratricide! Kyle Busch helps former nemesis Tony Stewart pass brother Kurt.

3:20 - Or is it "cooptition"? It's still stupid and we don't care.

3:30 - Distinctly Red-State combination of NASCAR, KFC, and cheap domestic beer is making me slowly start hating queers, ragheads, and myself.

3:36 - Apparently, "it's become a global economy."

3:57 - Sweet, another Dale Earnhardt hagiography!

4:02 - Tony and Junior are totally down with the brothers!

4:46 - Holyshitholyshitholyshit!

5:03 - Tony Stewart said nothing passive-agressive about anyone. What is wrong with this world?

6: whatever - fuck Kevin Harvick. He should be sent to Guantanamo for beating the Army car and undermining the morale of our troops around the world.

Don't call it a comeback...no, seriously, don't

Yeah, so we're back for '07, motherfuckers. How did we spend our off-season? Well, we'll explain with this SAT-style analogy:

Turning Left staff : cheap whiskey :: #16 Ford Fusion : Turn 2 at Las Vegas

Now that that's cleared up, here's what happened in NASCAR:

- A bunch of points system changes that will expand the Chase field, award more points for wins, and do a bunch of other confusing stuff. Don't worry if it's not all clear quite yet, because later this year or the next a popular driver will miss the Chase and the rules will change again. NASCAR, you have to remember, is an empire now, and they create their own reality. All of this means that David Ragan is going to be in the chase before the end of this decade.

- Dale Jr. and Teresa are engaged in some sort of hard-fought negotiations over Junior's ownership stake at DEI. It sounds all corporate and complicated and shit, but in the end one gets the impression that it's a multimillion dollar variant of the "my daddy ain't buy this trailer for you before he passed and you sure as shit ain't my mama" dispute that's played out hundreds of times on any given day in certain parts of this great country of ours.

- Speaking of which, DEI's new president is a black Jew who's worked with Jay-Z.

- Speaking of which, this happened.

- Travis Kvapil has begun the process of transforming the NCTS into his prison bitch.

- There was a Budweiser Shootout in which basically nothing happened. A Toyota (Dale Jarrett's) started on the pole, then sunk like a stone through the field. Tony Stewart won after a perfectly executed bump'n'run on Kyle Busch; Junior caused a mini-Big One at the race's end for no apparent reason.

- Jack Roush kept remembering Pearl Harbor.

- Everyone is still cold hating on the Car of Tomorrow.

- Ray "The Crocker-Fucker" Evernham managed to get all three of his cars penalized for technical malfeasance during quals for the 500. NASCAR pretended to care a little harder than they usually do and handed out some point deductions along with the requisite crew chief suspensions. Matt Kenseth and Michael Waltrip got caught doing various questionable things as well.

- Speaking of Ray Evernham, Erin Crocker is still incompetent.

- The Freemasons are sponsoring a Busch car; announcement of an Illuminati/Trilateral Commission Craftsman truck expected soon.

- While Evernham is going down the shitter - well, probably not; if recent history is any indication, Kasey Kahne will win the Daytona 500 - the newly sugared-up (Mars, Inc. brands are now the primary sponsors of both the 88 and the 38) Yates is making a comeback and probably doesn't mind if you call it that. David Gilliland finished second in the Shootout and won the pole for the 500 itself, while Ricky Rudd, driving the 88, won the outside pole. Absolutely no one expects them to carry this momentum to anywhere outside the Daytona Beach city limits, but then again, there's nothing Americans love like an unlikely, scrappy team of unknowns and has-beens coming together in defiance of the odds and rescuing their father from old-school Abu Graib or something.

- Mark Martin is now in the #01 Army car, which we have a feeling has something to do with the Iraq surge and will probably prove to be the most successful element thereof.

- A couple people died.

- A few more probably will soon.

- White people are still awkward, stupid.

That's about it - consider yourself caught the fuck up. See you after the 150s, when we'll be back with the first preds of the '07 season.