As I sit here on the eve of America's Great Race, the Daytona 500, two things come to mind. First, and foremost, I'm not in Florida selling funnel cakes. Instead, I struggled through the ESPN Bracket Buster Game at Liberty today with a total sales of $272. While that covered my expenses, (I paid Laura and Tank and used some supplies) it left me very little to go out tomorrow and buy a Big Mac and a Shovel.

 I'd rather be sitting on the beach in front of the Treasure Island Inn in Daytona Beach sipping Mai Tai's or some other tropical flavored drink and getting ready for selling about a million and a half funnel cakes tomorrow.

The other thing that comes to mind is the controversy over the new surface on the Daytona Speedway. If you've watched any of the coverage from there this past couple of weeks, you know there is a new track surface that may change the restrictor plate races forever. Instead of 15 or 20 cars bunched together, they seem to pair up in twos and go much faster. So, when the Big One happens, it won't be a bunch of cars getting trashed because they are in two-by-twos all over the track.

I decided to research this phenomenon and consulted with the FBI, the CIA, the AFof LCIO and the tribal council meeting in the parking lot in front of Becky McCray's liquor store in Alva, OK. The result was that NASCAR mixed asphalt with the dung of a Japanese Yak and repaved the track. Whoever came up with that formula needs to consult with Dr. Phil for the next three weeks.

The track has more grip allowing the cars to go over 200MPH. And it only takes one partner to push you to the lead rather than ten like in the past. The only problem is that when the temperature hits 95 in the shade, what will Daytona smell like.

DISCLAIMER: If you believe anything read on these pages, you need an encounter with the south end of the Japanese Yak.