Green Flag

We have all heard it floating around the rumor mill. The Go Daddy girl (or would she prefer to be called race car driver?) might go from open wheels and road courses to fenders and left turns only. If you ask Danica Patrick if she is thinking about switching from IRL to NASCAR, she isn’t going to say much though. She’s going to throw it all back into the lap of her agents.

And she is actually being smart by not saying anything. In fact, if you take her words at face value it seems as if she doesn’t care one way or another. She just wants to race! She is letting her agents take car of what and where she will be doing the racing.

And this is probably good because she has to be concerned with branding. Whether you like it or not, Danica Patrick has become a brand. She is no different than some of the biggest names in sports. She is right up there with Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Payton Manning. How many Go Daddy commercials have we seen her in? What’s next? Maybe we’ll see her shilling for Pepsi or Bank of America next! After all, the big money is in the sponsorships, not the racing!

It was time for an oil change on my 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 4X4 pickup truck. So I took it to the Goodyear service center that I always go to because it is near my house. I even had a coupon so I could save a few bucks. But when the tech came out to get the mileage and such on my truck he pointed out that I needed new tires. Then we went back inside and he priced them out. It was going to be over $1000.00! I told him I would skip them today (I wanted to shop around for a better price) and jokingly said that maybe it was time to trade in the Dodge for a fancy new 2009 Ford F150.

About a half an hour later, they called me from the shop and read off a laundry list of things that needed to be done to my Dodge. I guess that’s what actually did push me over the edge. I told them just to do the oil change and skip everything else.

So the next morning I drove to the Ford dealership. These guys were pretty excited about the idea of selling me a brand new Ford F150 FX4. They gave me top dollar for my trade, hooked me up with $5,000.00 in rebates and even came off the sticker price quite a bit (after bickering back and forth for a couple of hours). And now I don’t need new tires or costly repairs!

This past Sunday I met a few friends at a local hangout to make some final plans for a camping trip that we do every year. We decided to meet up at a sports bar that we all hang out at on a fairly regular basis. I figured since it is both basketball and hockey playoff time we could even catch a good game while we were there. But they had something else on the TVs at the bar.

No before I go where I’m going with this, I have to point out that I like auto racing. For one thing, Danica Patrick is hot! And the wrecks are always fun to watch. I have even been to an Indi series race and I had a blast. It’s amazing how fast the cars are plus you’re hanging out with a bunch of other people drinking beer while waiting to see a car wreck!

So the sports bar had the NASCAR race on. But they also had it cranked up on the overhead PA speaker system. Well I can tolerate and even enjoy a NASCAR race, but I had never paid attention to the commentary. The problem I had was the thick hillbilly accent that every single announcer had. These guys sounded like uneducated idiots.

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you owe someone a favor, but you just don’t want to deliver on it? Well that is totally the situation that I am in right now. A few years ago I was going through a messy divorce. I needed someplace to store my jet skis. My brother offered to let me leave them in his garage. That was pretty nice of him!

So now my brother is going through a divorce. It’s not a very nasty one; he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Anyway, his hobby is auto racing and he has a Camaro that doesn’t really look like a Camaro anymore. It has been hopped up and modified for the dirt track. He asked me if he could store it in my garage.

First of all, I know that it won’t just be stored in my garage. I know he will want to bring all of his air tools and stuff so he can work on it in my garage. And I have seen his garage floor. I don’t want my garage floor to look like his does! This is my house, not an automotive repair shop. But he’s my brother, and he would do the same for me so I guess I need to let him.

Tash O inquired:


If I get AA breakdown cover as a passenger and my boyfriend breaks down in the car when I’m not there can I still call the AA out (I would leave my membership card in the car).
The reason for this is my boyfriend is currently a member but after 3 years of no call outs I think it’s out of order that we don’t get a discount, my boyfriend wants us to stay with the AA so I want to apply for membership online and get the discount they’re offering. We can’t have vehicle membership as the car is over 10 years old. I don’t drive and although I’m with my boyfriend most of the time he is obviously allowed out on his own sometimes! and if he did breakdown without me would he be stuck?