Full Throttle

Happy New Year! Can we move along now?

As you may have guessed, I’m not very big on the New Year holiday. During my sailing the high seas days it was a day to avoid, a day to curtail my normal drinking habits and let the “amateurs” have their day to hug the porcelain god.

Since my retirement from the World’s Greatest and Most Sophisticated Canoe Club, and subsequent move to the Philippines, I’ve felt like the 10^th century Mongol hordes fighting off the Chinese and their Fire Arrows.

To say the Philippine fireworks industry is monitored & regulated is like saying politicians don’t like our money, in other more blunt terms it isn’t and they wallow in our cash like pigs in slop.

But last nights activities wasn’t a total loss.

It gave me time to think (always a dangerous proposition) as I stood ready to defend my palatial homestead against the onslaught of thousands of bottle rockets, misfiring roman candles and air bombs. All fired by “kids” young and old.

Oddly enough, in my time of reflection, the National Hockey League directed my attention to NASCAR and what could be in 2008.

New Years Day the NHL holds a league game in Orchard Park, N.Y. using an outdoor rink. The so called, and lamely named, Winter Classic features the Buffalo Sabres playing the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first outdoor game held since 2003’s Heritage Classic.

It’s that 2003 game that transitions me into NASCAR’s 2008 season. The Heritage Classic pitted “classic players” against each other, former Montreal and Edmonton stars that were retired but still able to lace’em up and put on a show.

We all know Rockingham Speedway has been resurrected from the dead by Andy Hillenburg. In fact the last few weeks has seen a butt load of testing at the facility.

Also on tap for 2008 is the new Old School Racing Champions Tour (OSRCT) featuring some the NASCAR’s/ARCA’s retired greats and near greats returning to action on a few of the nations smaller (