Wind 'em up

Spring arrived Sunday as a snow-blurred poser announcing its presence with the grinding squall of metal on metal. Which is to say, I turned on my TV, and there were a bunch of stock car drivers running into each other.

This happens frequently in NASCAR, but it's been awhile since I'd seen it. And so, yeah, I could smell spring in the midst of all that flying snow, because the boys of summer were at it again down there in Daytona, with a certified graybeard leading the way and getting folks all riled up the way NASCAR fans tend to get riled up.

The graybeard was Jimmie Johnson, who won the Clash yesterday by wrecking practically everyone else in the field just before a iran shower ended things 20 laps shy of the scheduled 75. Seems he tried to side-draft Paul Menard, Menard got loose, and what happens in plate races happened.

In other words, everyone wound up in a big pile of dents, dings and wadded-up sheet metal.

Johnson, meanwhile, sailed unimpeded to victory, ending a weekend in which Hendrick Motorsports had everyone covered. Their patriarch won the Clash, and the kids -- William Byron and Alex Bowman -- locked down the front row in qualifying for next Sunday's Daytona 500, So, much has changed, and nothing has changed.

All that is mere detail, however.

What mattered is it ushered in Speedweeks at Daytona, which in turn has always been the First Robin for the Blob. I see stock cars at Daytona, I know spring is in the wind. It may not look or feel like it, but for the first time, I can smell it in the wind.

So, wind 'em up, boys -- and J.J., try not to wreck everyone next Sunday.

Me, I may fire up the grill, weather be hanged. Spring has sprung.