Post Valentines Day
Thanks to my lovely date last night for accompanying me to a land of giant pieces of perfectly prepared slabs of beef on 500 degree plates while thoughts of valets molesting my car danced in my head. All in all it was a top notch evening.
So what do I write about the day after Valentine's Day? Duh! It's speed week down in Daytona. NASCAR! I know you're all as excited as I am. Tomorrow are the dual 150's (two qualifying races to determine the starting grid for the race.) Sunday is the Daytona 500 which I will be enjoying in drool inducing HD for the first time. Don't plan on me answering my phone Sunday afternoon.
I know you're all happy to have another season of NASCAR because it opens up another bucket of jokes for you. I know this won't stop you, or even slow you down, but here are a few numbers to let you know that maybe, just maybe, you're missing out on something that the rest of the country is enjoying. Here are the number of viewers for some other events:
2006 Super Bowl: 90.7 million
Game 7 of 2002 World Series: 30.8 million
2005 World Series average: 16 million
CSI weekly average: 28.5 million
2005 Daytona 500: 34 million
The average weekly viewership for a race is 8-12 million. In 2003, NASCAR had higher ratings than the NBA regular season, the NCAA tourney, PGA golf, and all of the NHL (regular season, playoffs, and Stanley Cup.)
But numbers are numbers. I'd watch even if I was the only one (and around here I am.) Here's to another 10 months of cars going around in circles!