It’s NASCAR! Live on your highway!
I shouldn’t be shocked anymore. I’ve seen so many things when driving that I should be immune to astonishment now. But I can’t help it. It still happens. I blame NASCAR.
No don’t get me wrong, I love NASCAR. Or I used to. My father used to race all over SW Mo before he settled down, got married, and got busy gettin’ busy. So we used to not only watch races on TV, but we’d go to the local dirt tracks to watch the races. And I’d listen to my dad tell stories of his racin’ days. So I love auto racing, but it should be confined to the racetracks & dragstrips that were built for it. Not on the road I take for my daily commute.
And yet there he was, doing his best Intimidator impersonation as he passed me on the shoulder this morning. And if I could have stopped time when I first saw him in my rearview mirror, I would have wagered my life savings on there being some form of NASCAR sticker attached to his car somewhere. Sure enough, as he zoomed past, I glimpesed an “Our friend Dale” sticker in the window. He completed his daring pass on the high side, thankfully without having a vehicle pull out from one of the numerous side roads to cause a disaster, and took the lead coming into the homestretch. The checkered flag waiting for him.
Of course it would have been a different story if I had given into my first impulse to swerve out & put him in the wall. But unlike him, I realized I was just driving to work. Not racing to the line.