Here’s the deal. I’m the best there is. Plain and simple. I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence.” – Ricky Bobby

 

If you're a red, white and blue bleedin Merican you know this coming weekend is the Great American Race. No not the most excellent race between two old fucks that arguably no one wants to run this once fine country. That’s right you mother fucks, it’s Racin Time!!! The Daytona 500!!!

 

Here’s a not so brief history of the race as seen thru the eyes of one proud as shit American. Did I mention he’s handsome as well? That’s right it’s me, JB.

 

My story starts the with my old man Slim Tim, just a few years before I stated driving his drunk ass around 1979 ish. Old Slim met his friends annually from Massachusetts at the race and in 79 I got permission to tag along for the first time. Probably hard for you to imagine, but Slim meeting up with his friends  mostly involved drinking a shit ton of alcohol and getting hammered drunk!!!  And what’s better to do after drinking all day? Take to the roads of Daytona in the 2 rental cars (usually Lincoln's or Cadillac's) for a little demolition derby a-la Days Of thunder. Great First experience for me and it’s the first time I got to see Richard Petty not only race live, but win a race. I also got to see the King win a few more times during the drunk friends from Mass era. I was also lucky enough to witness his final win in 1984 which was his 200th. All the while my dad and his friends wouldn’t even know the winner until the next morning after sobering up. 

Great years for young JB, and some bad moments.  This could have been one of my earliest experience with my friend anxiety. During the race I had to pee so I headed to the bathroom. Young JB was not ready for what awaited him there. The men’s toilets are basically a huge trough the masses stood around mostly with beer in hand and all with peckers out reliving themselves. It was too much for me to deal with and no matter how much I tried to go, nothing came out nada, zilch. I got a case of the stage fright, that a still suffer from today. Although trying to do multiplication does seem to work for me now most of the time. I highly recommend if you ever get stage fright  

As time went on Slim started to take me and my younger brother every year.  There wasn’t much planning in those years or a budget. The Bennett’s were let’s just say financially embarrassed. My best memories of these years were staying at seedy hotels full of roaches and probably goes without saying unclean rooms.  More often than not we were under a couple that was either filming a porn or one of the 2 just got out of jail and was really horned up. My brother also got to see his first set of boobies thanks to the hotels late nite skinamax movies since slim didn’t believe in shutting the television off the entire stay. We never had tickets for the actual race, we either woke up at 4am the day of and tried to get the 4000 or so that the track sold morning of at 6am for the tiny seating area along the backstretch of the track. Ahhhh the memories of standing in lines in the freezing cold with mostly full grown men who haven’t  showered in a week that smell like beer and cheese. Lastly, thanks the lady in said backstretch who somehow managed to pass out, bag of weed in hand, top pulled down and skirt hiked up sans underwear. This was the day I discovered so much, but mostly that I loved women and was pretty sure I was straight. 

As time went on and my brother and I got older we started to help Slim with organizing our annual trips to Daytona. This started the camping phase. This brought us closer to the track and all the drunkenness and tomfoolery that went along with it. At first it was a popup camper which was awesome except for when Slim would get up in the middle of night and decide that pissing under your part of the slide out was just as good as walking all the way to Porto let.  After a year a so, we graduated to an actual RV. Slim took the small bed in rear, my brother on the couch/table and I got the 18” tall bed/grave over the front cab. When friends came they slept on the floor, which made for interesting maneuvers on occasions when I had to get down to relieve my self in the middle of the night. We truly thought it couldn’t get much better than this. We were finally part of  Daytona experience and were living every common man’s dream. Towards the later stages I was getting great tickets from work thanks to spending a shit ton of money on Caterpillar equipment. Some of the best and worst times happened during these times. Worst, getting the call that my grandfather passed away suddenly really sucked. Being at the track the day Dale Earnhardt passed away on the last lap and listening to his crew chief trying to get him to respond moments after the accident. That was also the crazy ass year it seemed the entire middle of the state was on fire. Lots of great memories too. Seeing Earnhardt win his first and only 500 and how all the other crews lined up to give him high fives as he came by is something I’ll never forget. And finally, the day I told Slim that I really wanted him to see me graduate college, so I bet him $50 that he couldn’t stop drinking on the drive to Daytona which ultimately led to him never drinking again.

The final stage would have never been possible without my good friend Sal. Let’s call this final stage, Fuck all you peasants we are living the dream bitches!!! Where to start, we weren't camping  anymore mofo’s we were glamping!!! I’m talking huge ASS coach!!! Russ’s coach was the shit. It slid out into a condo had tv’s, shower, and an operational shitter. We camped right at the track where all the Coach type vehicles parked, brought our bikes so we could get around the like the rich folk and also to be able to make a quick get away from the poor Porto let using peeps. And as far as the actual race, thanks to a continuing need and love of buying heavy equipment and helping the fine folks at Ring Power buy more Sport Fishers and Jets we were given the best tickets you could imagine. We were given passes to sit in the infield to watch the race in the Cat Financial Box, including breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks, got to meet the Caterpillar driver and walk the track. We could watch the race on one of the many TVs they had set up or listen to the drivers talk to their crew chiefs on the headsets they gave us, or if we were really bored, actually watch the race live. You know, like most of the poor people were doing. My Daytona life experience had come full circle. I started by watching the king and in my mind had now become the king. These were some great times with nothing but the best memories. The best 2 were spending these times with close friends and watching my own son experience the Daytona 500 as I did many moons ago. 

Just remember guys if you ain’t first….

Peace and Love