Saturday, February 7, 2009

How you can tell that ...

... retired NASCAR drivers aren't exactly rocket scientists.

After blaming a full moon for the crazy events in tonight's Shootout at Daytona (which proved to be a really good race), Darrell Waltrip said "I sure hope there isn't a full moon next Sunday!" (for the Daytona 500).

(Howling laughter is heard through the Pion household.)

No, you don't have to worry about that, Darrell. In fact, I'd say there is a pretty good chance that there will be a half-moon that day.

Just as I am pretty sure that there will be lots of comments this Sunday (during qualifying) evincing surprise that the second lap of a qualifying run is faster than the first lap ... on a track where the drag-limited top speed of a "restrictor plate" race ensures that the cars take more than two laps to reach maximum speed.

When your car approaches its top speed asymptotically, you have to be a really bad driver to keep from going faster on that second lap.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

My husband was watching that, and when the commentator made the moon comment, I said, "Did he just say what I think he said?"

Reminds me of the basketball announcer whom I heard say that since the basketball player with a 50% success rate had just made a free throw, he was more likely to miss the second one.

Doctor Pion said...

Well, at least I was pleasantly surprised that they started off qualifying with a mostly correct description of how the first lap merely sets up the run for the second lap.

My biggest problem right now is that I have to learn to hate a new number.