That car race

 Forget the damn rodent in Pennsylvania. Spring arrives today, here in the Precincts.

Spring arrives when 40 muscle cars start rumbling and blaring and bellowing at the Florida sky this afternoon, and the green drops on the 64th annual Daytona 500. You'll hear some sweat-blurred summer night, in all that rumbling and blaring and bellowing. You'll look out at the glacier-writ-small that is your February backyard, and see July.

That's how it's always been in the Precincts, aka Blob World. That's how it'll be today.

And that's despite the fact it's not quite the occasion is used to be for me.

These days, Daytona is just about the only NASCAR race I watch, and I'm not alone in that. There are a million reasons why American motorsports' 800-pound gorilla is down about 600 pounds, and not all of it is because the generation that built it is retired now. But I suspect that's part of it.

Dale Earnhardt died at Daytona 21 years ago, and now his son, Dale Jr., is an "old" retired guy. So is Jeff Gordon, former Wonderboy. So is Jimmie Johnson, who's trying his hand at IndyCar now, and Mark Martin, and Dale Jarrett and both Labontes and Tony Stewart and the whole spangled bunch of 'em -- including Bill Elliott, whose son, Chase, is your defending Cup champion.

The new guys are Chase and Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney, who is Dave Blaney's kid. Harrison Burton, Jeff Burton's kid, starts on the outside of Row 4 today. Austin Cindric, son of Penske team president Tim Cindric, starts on the inside of Row 3. 

Whole new deal, in other words. At some point we blinked, and NASCAR turned the page on an entire generation. Hell, Kyle Busch is an elder statesman now. So is Brad Keselowski, another former wild child.

This is not to suggest that's a bad thing, or to come off like some fist-shaking geezer howling against time's inevitable crawl. The kids are good, after all. They can drive the wheels off. But it takes awhile to get to know to them, to figure out who Chris Buescher is (outside of Row 2), or Chase Briscoe (inside Row 5), or Christopher Bell (outside Row 6), or any number of others.

By the end of today, one of them could be a Daytona 500 winner. And we'll know him a little better because of that.

Me?

I'll settle in and watch, same as ever. And Julie, same as ever, will say, "Are you watching that silly car race?"

Yes, dear. I am. 

Spring won't wait a second longer.