I gravy-trained a ticket to today's Champ Car race in Cleveland. You know it met my need for speed, as the roar by the shore was a celebration of acceleration. This was the first race I have seen the race in person, after seeing practice/qualifying sessions from time to time. And the weather cooperated nicely. Low 80's and we even had a bit of cloud cover late.

Racing is always interesting to me, because even if you have the best car, you may not win. Today, Sebastien Bourdais had the best car, by far, until his car kept stalling in the latter third of the race. That moved up Will Power, who we wanted to win (partially because of his name). He clearly had the second best car as he and Bourdais had cleared P3 by many seconds throughout the race. But Power ended up with a left flat tire and ceded the lead to Paul Tracy.

Tracy had a horrible start and had two incidents early in the race. After 5 laps, there was no way you thought he could win. Somehow, he kept it together, his pit strategy worked out wonderfully, and he had the proper gas mileage and ended up winning. And I give him credit, he was very humble accepting the trophy, as I'm sure he thought others deserved better.

I had a lot of fun, and I thought it was a really good day.

Meal of Links

How fat would you need to be to stop a bullet? Result: Buy a bulletproof vest.

Dick Cheney is a tool. Oh, he just loves to tinker with the idea of rules not applying to him.

It's never too early to talk about the 2008 election. It looks like it's going to be unconventional. When Michael Bloomberg announces his candidacy, he'll have plenty of advantages. A huge war chest, the ability to stay on the sidelines while everyone else battles, and can keep his own dialogue during that time. Key for a third-party candidate is entry into the debates. He may be able to do it.

Exercise Yard

Last night's boxing was on HBO and, once again, a fight billed as a potential "Fight of the Year" failed to live up to the hype. Champion Ricky Hatton and Jose Luis Castillo at 140 pounds. This was in Las Vegas, but you wouldn't have known it. 11,000 of the 17,000 tickets were actually sold in the UK. That meant, accompanied by Hatton's "personal marching band" as Lamps put it, we got constant trumpet playing and singing of "God Save the Queen", "O Brittania", "Ricky Hatton Wonderland" a la "Winter Wonderland", "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag" (yes, that song still has legs!) and others. Of course, he came out to a "No surrender" speech by Winston Churchill, that morphed into "Blue Moon", the theme song for his hometown Manchester City soccer town. He also came out wearing a sombrero, like Floyd Mayweather, and wore a robe that read, "Manchester Mexican". All boxers want the Mexicans on their side, it seems.

As for the fight. Well, if you were a Hatton fan, you probably loved it. He worked hard, threw lots of shots and dominated the fight. He KO'ed Castillo in the fourth with a big body shot to the liver. His percentage of power shots was up, and he was really never in any trouble. The problem was Castillo (far from those epic Corrales bouts) was a worthy opponent in name only. His skills have eroded and even Emanuel Steward noted that "in the first 10 seconds of the bout, I could tell he was an old fighter." Tough to rate Hatton due to the opponent.

Hatton has a dilemma. No doubt he can sell tickets. But if he stays at 140, it's pretty lean for quality opponents. If he moves up to 147, there are a ton of better fighters, and it's a big risk at that weight, a weight at which he didn't look well. So, what's a fighter to do. Call out Mayweather, obviously. "I had more action in four rounds tonight than Mayweather has had in his entire career." That would be a "Nice try." on that one.

Visitor

None, it was a "Boogity, boogity, boogity. Let's go racin', boys!" Sunday.