I walked into my local grocery store last night and saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. I did a quick double-take but it was only a cardboard cutout of him. I was seriously tempted to find the store manager to see if I could put down dibs on taking the cardboard Junior home with me. If you could live in my brain you’d be adequately entertained by some of the thoughts that run through it.

Anyway… It seems that the real Dale Jr. is feeding his love for Elvis by hosting the first night of the “Elvis Music & Movies” series at Graceland on August 13th, 2007 (that’s a Monday for those of you thinking about going). They’re going to show one of Elvis’ movies “Viva Las Vegas,” which happens to be my favorite Elvis movie. Not so much because of Elvis but more because of Ann Margaret and her song “My Rival.” I love that part, you should rent it.

So Infineon is this weekend and I’m not going to the races. This is the only race that comes to my area but I have to pass on it this year so that I can attend my youngest nephew’s birthday in La La Land (aka Los Angeles). This is how great of an aunt I am, I am sacrificing the chance to see my fave drivers up close in order to celebrate the day my nephew turns 6. Family is important to me and honestly I can get better views of this particular race by watching it on TV.

Infineon is a very fun place to watch a race, but you really have to be in shape in order to get around that place. It’s hilly and only certain locations around the track give the best views. And if you’re going to try and track down the drivers after the race for autographs, be prepared to hike up the hill to the helicopter pad.

I’m sad that I can’t go, and I’ll be extra miffed if Dale Jr. manages to pull out a top 5 finish and I wasn’t there to see it. I like this quote from him about Infineon:

“This weekend is important to me because I’m sick of hearing people say ‘oh, he can’t drive on a road course.’ We’ve been so close here before and have always come away with some sort of issue that takes away from what we can really do. I want a top-10 so bad here, I can taste it. We finished 11th two years in a row and led some laps. It broke my heart that I didn’t get to race the Corvette there in 2004 because of the crash during the morning warm-up. I was angry because it cost that team a chance to race after they had been so good to me, but also because I was really learning a lot and had improved my road racing skills.

Then, in 2005, we had a car I thought had a chance to win the Cup race but we were trying a new transmission and it locked-up on the first lap and I was in the wall. That was so disappointing - and it was even worse when we fixed the car and I went back out and was still as fast as anyone in a car that was beat-up and taped together. It was frustrating, but it was another sign that I can do this. Last year, we passed more than 15 cars on track, moved into the top-10 and then got taken out by a ringer who was driving like a madman. We tested for a day at VIR (Virginia Intl. Raceway) a few weeks back, and I think this is the weekend we get can get a finish that this team deserves.”

In other news…

– Here are the things I wish for AJ Allmendinger: 1.) He qualifies for the race at Infineon this weekend and 2.) He places somewhere in the top 10 at the very least.

– NASCAR.COM’s Duane Cross writes about Liz Allison’s soon-to-be-released book (September 7th to be exact) The Girl’s Guide to Winning a NASCAR Driver (Secrets to Grabbing His Attention and Stealing His Heart)… The book provides info on how drivers met their wives and how to grab a drivers attention. Check out the article it’s a fun read, especially the part about Kurt Busch and a horse’s behind.

– Thanks to a reader I now have a link to a photo of Marco Andretti Shirtless… Your endless Google searches can end here.

– Another Infineon bit… Wanna meet Clint Bowyer? Here’s the lowdown on how you can this Friday, June 22nd in Petaluma, Calif.

On behalf of Jack Daniel’s, Bowyer will appear on the mezzanine above the Tolay restaurant at the Sheraton Sonoma County – Petaluma Hotel on Friday, June 22 from 7-8:30 p.m. The hotel is located at 745 Baywood Drive in Petaluma. Bowyer will be on hand to greet race fans and sign autographs.

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I was looking at the traffic stats for my blog and I’ve noticed a lot of searches for the terms “Marco Andretti Shirtless.” I wish I actually had some photos of Marco sans shirt, I’m sure my traffic would skyrocket.

Anywhoo… It seems that Ryan Newman is back to his old tricks again. He secured the pole for a second week, this time for Dover this weekend. Congrats to him, hopefully he can stay up there at the front until the end of the race.

I know that this blog is supposed to be all about racing and whatnot but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about a couple really great CDs that I bought recently. The first is from the band The Used. “Lies for the Liars” is their 3rd album and it is sooo great! It hasn’t been getting a lot of media attention (if any) but it should ’cause it’s great rock music. If you’ve liked any of The Used’s songs in the past you should pick this one up. Also you should grab The Almost’s “Southern Weather,” I’m listening to it this very minute and I dig it. It’s kind of emo, kind of harder rock, but in general it’s your basic alternative rock type stuff. I have a hard time categorizing certain bands; all I know is that this stuff gives me goose bumps.

Just a couple tidbits about the upcoming Infineon race on the 24th:

– Legendary ex-NFL wide receiver Jerry Rice has been named the Grand Marshal of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. “This will be a new experience for me and I’m really looking forward to it,” Rice said. “I’ve never been to a NASCAR race but I understand it is quite an experience. I’m honored to be grand marshal of the race weekend and I’m looking forward to the event.”

– Teams for Casey Mears and Clint Bowyer prepared for the race in Sonoma by testing their cars at the Virginia International Raceway this week.

Since it’s Friday I went over to YouTube to try and find something fun and interesting.

I found a show called Indy Insider hosted by a kid named Arni. In this clip he’s at the Honda Welcome Party during the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersberg in St. Petersberg, Florida. He talks to Tony Kanaan (who comandeers Arni’s microphone) and Michael and Marco Andretti (who is apparently shy when it comes to talking to the ladies). [Indy Insider - Honda Party-part 2]

Fun stuff…

A couple weeks ago I attended a press conference at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. In attendance was Scott Pruett (who didn’t know it at the time but would later be screwed by his own teammate at the Busch race in Mexico), NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle Rider Angelle Sampey, IndyCar Series driver Marco — Grandson of Mario — Andretti (sporting some interestingly decorated & detailed jeans) and NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series rookie A.J. Allmendinger, a native of Los Gatos, Calif.

Poor A.J. He has yet to qualify his #84 Red Bull Toyota Camry for any of the Cup series races this year. I sincerely hope that his team can pull it together, at least in time for the race at Infineon in June. Since he is from the Bay Area it would be nice to qualify and run in front of his hometown crowd.

I’m really bringing up A.J. for another reason. At the press conference there were media materials laid out representing all of the drivers in attendance. If you watched the special they ran before the Daytona 500 this year about Toyota’s entry into Cup racing you would have seen the photo shoot for this booklet. The results are great. They made ‘em look tall! The Team Red Bull booklet stood out and is by far the best piece of marketing for a race team that I have seen in quite some time.

I’m sure Brian Vickers is much happier now hawking an energy drink instead of womens shampoo. Bye Bye Garnier Fructis!

See for yourself in the photos below…

These are little cards that you can take out of the booklet and do with as you please. Nice touch!

I’ve been wanting to write this entry since Sunday but my grand plans about doing it once I left the track slowly eroded as I was stuck in traffic for 2 hours. That’s the only incredibly irritating thing about going to a race at Infineon, the drive home! It never fails. There’s literally only one lane out in each direction. I forgot to grab a cold drink and a snack before I got in my car so I was parched and starving; trying to sing along with my CDs in the hopes that it would help me to forget my hunger. It didn’t.

Anyway, I’m back at work and there’s so much that I haven’t talked about yet. So let’s get to it.

First off, this past weekend there were about a million times it seemed that I had to stop, look around and say to myself, “Look at where you are, remember this.” The first such moment was with Gene Simmons. Yes, he’s kinda weird but it was pretty surreal to have him just sitting in front of me, blabbering on about how great IndyCar racing is.

The second moment was when Tony Kanaan walked past me after the race. He went into the winners circle to congratulate Marco Andretti and then pushed past me and others to get to the garage area. He came up my chest. He’s short.
The third and final memorable moment of the day was after the race when Marco and Michael Andretti (Marco’s dad) were in the media center answering questions. This was Marco’s first IndyCar win, ever and he’s only 19 (although to me he looks like he’s twelve). He’s the youngest winner of a major open-wheel event to date. So this race, this win, was a huge deal and I was there to witness it. I’ll never forget it.

I’m a NASCAR fan and I’ll watch IRL stuff for a little bit if it’s on, or if it’s the Indy 500. Going to this race really didn’t change that for me. During the national anthem there wasn’t a fly-over! What kind of race is it without a fly-over? The crew members were hot I must admit, especially one particular guy on Dan Wheldon’s team. Hello!

But I digress.
I did get to see Ashley Judd, Dario Franchitti’s wife, and she looked great. I have a great photo of the back of her head, in case you’re interested. I also saw Danica Patrick a lot. There really isn’t anything that great to tell about her.

Infineon wasn’t as packed as it was for the NASCAR race in June, but there were still a ton of race fans on hand for the event. Overall I though, I thought the race was fun, cool and very memorable.

So my heart softened just a little bit for Jimmie Johnson this weekend. Normally he’s on my crap list, especially with that suspect crew chief of his Chad Knaus, but this week I could really sense genuine feelings and emotions from him, like winning this race really meant something to him.

And so it should, it was the Brickyard 400 after all, oops I mean the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. This is one of the few times I’ll ever take issue with sponsors but when the race is at Indy it should be called Indy or Brickyard. They’re never going to change the Daytona 500 to the McDonalds 500 at Daytona. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is steeped in history for Indy cars, but not so much for stock cars. But if you watched the pre-race show on NBC you’d think Jesus walked on those bricks. I kid, I kid…

The thing I hated about the race was that the finish wasn’t a nail biter. It didn’t come close to this year