Polite Dissent

Spent most of the weekend watching the Olympics, from the opening ceremony (a Ferrari doing donuts? What the-) on. I did take a break for the NASCAR Bud Shootout, a short race at Daytona with a field limited to racers who won a pole last year and past winners of the Shootout. Random thoughts follow.

Olympics:

• Women’s Olympic Hockey is hockey perfection. You can actually see the skill and fluidity that make hockey a compelling sport, and not jst the brute-fest it has become in the NHL.
• I can’t say I’m disappointed that Bode Miller didn’t win. I’m glad that Chad Hedrick and Shaun White won.
• Ice skaters performing to Led Zeppelin. Never thought I’d live to see that.

NASCAR:

• It’ll take a while to get used to the new Ford Fusions.
• While I generally detest restrictor plate races, the changes to the aero-package made this a watchable race. Hopefully this will also hold true for next week’s Daytona 500.
• Kyle Bush remains top of my list for largest a**es in racing. I’ll grant that he is a modestly skilled driver, but he has nowhere near the talent he thinks he has, and he can’t pull off the moves he thinks he can. He only knocked out two other drivers yesterday, but then it was a short race.
• Jeff Burton has won the pole for next week’s Daytona 500. Burton is one of the most underappreciated drivers out there, and one of the most wellspoken. Watch: whenever the mainstream media needs to talk to a NASCAR driver it will inevitably be Jeff Burton or Dale Jarrett as they are only two who really know who to talk well.