Friday, April 28, 2006

You Gotta Have Guts...

I was listening to Dale Jr "Unrestricted" on XM Satellite Radio last night and he was telling the grossest story about his JR Motorsports Busch Series Driver Mark McFarland. Mark pilots the #88 Navy car for this, the inaugural season of Jr's Busch team. It seems Mark got food poisoning the morning of Phoenix's Busch race (4/21) and according to Jr no one knew exactly how sick Mark was until he was in the car and things were underway. At one point in the race Mark seemed to be having handling issues and he dropped back twelve or so spots. Unfortunately for Mark it wasn't the car at all, it was because he was vomiting all over himself, for three whole laps, while going 125+ mph. Did I mention he wears a full-face helmet?

He went a lap down, got the lucky dog, some how managed to finish the race in the 16th position and then proceeded to sit in the car after the race and throw up for another 15 minutes. I'm not sure who the lucky guy was who pulled him from his car and took him to the infield care center for his four bags of IV fluids but I wouldn't have wanted to draw that short straw. Mark proved he could cowboy-up and do what it took to run with the big guys, I'm sure he earned a lot of respect that night. Plus it'll be a story that he can tell for years to come..."Hey remember that time when I puked all over myself in Phoenix and didn't wreck..." Good times, good times.

No comments: