Isn’t it funny how specific types of music are synonymous with certain motorcycles? Take the image of two Panhead choppers blasting along on a desert road, two lidless riders with Fu Manchu’s and wraparound sunglasses–the soundtrack that comes to mind is Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”, right? A stretched, chromed, and lowered turbo Hayabusa with neon lights sounds good with 50 Cent’s “Just A Li’l Bit”. Pierced-face SoCal dudes flying motocross bikes over sand dunes in the desert? Any drop-D tuned rap metal song will do.With the Daytona 500 fewer than two weeks away, three-time champ and Fox Sports NASCAR analyst Darrell Waltrip shares his thoughts on the upcoming season.
Q: How excited are you to get away from the bad news of the offseason and into racing?
A: Offseasons are always kind of chaotic. You’ve got all these people, and more now than we ever had before, telling you what’s wrong with the sport and how to fix it. That’s what happens when you have a little lull in the activity. Once we get back into racing, it’s more about what’s going on at the track and on the track than it is what’s going on away from the track. A lot of the things we’ve been reading about and hearing about, we’ll be able to put those things to rest. We’re going to have plenty of cars at Daytona. We’re going to have a lot of new teams that are going to show up. I don’t know how long they’re going to be able to hang. But the excitement Daytona generates is a great way to start off the year, particularly this year, when there’s been kind of a lot of gloom and doom.
Q: How big of a deal will it be if Jimmie Johnson wins four titles in a row?
A: I think it’s huge. I really think they can do it. Obviously, the competition is going to come from probably the Roush camp. It looks like it’ll be Carl (Edwards) and Kyle (Busch). But until someone shows me they can go mistake free…Â More info…
