You could say the Brickyard 400 -- aka, Now Just Another NASCAR Race -- caught a break this weekend. In an inside-out, Brickyard 400 sort of way, of course.
It got rained out, you see.
Which pushed it to Monday, which meant it wouldn't be going head-to-head with the first NFL Sunday of the season, which at the very least meant you might be able to find it on one of the screens in your favorite sports bar -- a circumstance that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
Of course, the Monday date doomed it to its likely lowest attendance ever. Which is saying something considering how attendance has been steadily sliding downhill for the last decade.
On the other hand, there was actually some pseudo drama at the end this time, if only because a late crash bunched the field for a restart with three laps to run. This enabled Brad Keselowski to pass Denny Hamlin for the lead on the next-to-last lap. In the numbingly monotonous Tournament of Roses parade that is the Brickyard, that qualified as Goosebump City.
And who knows? Maybe it did actually make a few screens in a few sports bars.
Not the one I was in, late Monday afternoon. Walked in and sat down to watch the closing laps after work, and on one screen there was NFL Monday Night preview stuff, and on another screen some highlights from the Sunday games, and on yet another screen the replay of Notre Dame-Ball State from Saturday.
I thought about asking the bartender if she could switch one of them to the race. But I'm a Ball State grad, and the Cardinals played bravely in Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, and so ...
And so, I watched Riley Neal instead of Ryan Blaney.
And didn't miss a thing, sadly.
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