Last Day of The Month

KOUPON KAREN

I ran across the note above while perusing some websites today.  Then it dawned on me that, indeed, today is the last day of the month.  My life isn't such that I have things that need to be done by the end of the month; but, there are a few important things that occur at the end of the month or the first of the month.

When I worked I'd get paid every 2 weeks and never thought twice about when the money was deposited because there was no way to know without looking at the calendar and payday schedule.  As a retired fella, now I get funds deposited once a month, either the last day of the month or the first of the month; seems to depend on the whimsical nature of the big machine that sends the funds along.

After seeing the reminder above, I decided to check my blog and see when my last post was dated.  The date on it is March 31, 2014.  Yep, it's been a month since I last posted anything here and I can't say much for what I came up with for today's post.  But at least I'll have one dated April 30, 2014 to keep up the pace.

April has been an eventful month with several personal family items of interest that I won't delve into today, but more importantly the racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide series has been superb.  I've been a NASCAR fan since back in the '60s when they ran down at a local track in Beltsville, Maryland on a little half-mile asphalt oval on one Wednesday night each year.  I didn't get to go to a real large NASCAR track until the early '70s when me and a bunch of buds made a visit to Charlotte for the World 600 race over Memorial Day weekend.

I was truly excited by the environment around the track with all the people camping in the area for the weekend and folks that were just as nice as you could want 'em to be.  The World 600 was a long race and fun to watch back then but I didn't know I was tired until I had helped drive us all the way home to the Big Town of Savage in the middle of the night.  We had a great time that weekend and I became a NASCAR regular whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Back in those days the winner of the race made considerable money and the points awarded toward a yearly champion didn't mean much to most drivers.  The race generally paid much more than the yearly champion got along with the big trophy.  That all changed over the years as NASCAR brought more sponsorship into the racing game and TV discovered NASCAR live and the yearly champion.

Up until this season NASCAR racing degenerated each season with the yearly championship being the most important thing going because of the TV money and the publicity for the team sponsors.  Each race provided little for the winner other than the trophy, a few bucks and publicity; but most important more points than anyone else in the race toward the yearly championship.

Yes sir, drivers had no incentive to win a particular race, the most important thing was to get a 'GOOD POINTS' finish to boost you higher in the yearly point standings.  Wasn't unusual at all to see a driver settle for 2nd or 3rd rather than risk crashing out of the race and losing points just to win against a faster car.  Drivers with no will to win equals dull racing...dull racing equals poor TV product and loss of fans.

The season NASCAR has changed their points system and made it almost essential to win a race if you want to win the championship.  Without getting into details, I'll just say that winning a race in 2014 almost guarantees you a spot in the final competition for the 2014 Sprint Cup Championship.  

Racing is once again exciting for NASCAR fans, there's competition on the track to WIN and altercations in the pits after the race.  When drivers are mad at another driver after a race, that typically means you, the fan, have seen some good 'RUBBIN AND RACIN'.  

JD, here in the BToS waiting for the excitement at Talladega in the new month; this weekend.