And as I watched the condensed version of the race -- it occurred to me about lap 100 that I could just fast forward through the commercials, of which there were so many -- that 1) I have too much time on my hands and need some new friends, and 2) the racetrack in Loudon, New Hampshire should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever host a NASCAR race. Ever.

And 3) the NBC/TNT broadcast crew should be banned from the race track. Seriously, a drunk monkey could do a better job covering a race than that crew.

No offense to the drunk monkeys.

So after a while I just sort of zoned out and came to with a terrible pain in my neck and drool running down my chin.

I know, quite a visual.

As a positive, though, it gave me a chance to clear my head of the random, meaningless thoughts that have accumulated in my head over the last several weeks.

Keeping Notes

I don't think I am going to recognize a single thing next year in racing. I'm sure that this will be the topic of numerous upcoming columns, but as of right now, I just can't keep up with it.

I have a notebook with everything that is going to be different next year (yes, I am that big of a dork) and I have filled up two whole pages.

Eh?

Have you heard about Ed Carpenter?

This guy has got to be the stupidest man in America. I'm not cravenly PC, but you just can't say what this guy said about Danica Patrick and a certain time of the month.

I think he may be Canadian.

Buck the Trend

I've been watching a lot of baseball on Fox lately and I've concluded that Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have got to be the worst thing on television.

Bill Weber notwithstanding.

Stewing Over Tony

Tony Stewart is 11th in Nextel Cup points.

Is the world going to end if Tony doesn't make the Chase?

I don't think so, but I'm apparently the only one.

The Joy of Canseco

Thank God -- or Tom Cruise -- that Jose Canseco is back in our lives.

In my lifetime, there have been very few athletes that bring the absolute joy to my life in the manner that Mr. Canseco has.

Of course, by joy I mean uproarious laughter.

He is resuming his baseball career as a pitcher in an attempt to boost his acting career.

I love the fact that this guy has become such a huge caricature of himself.

He's the Toby Keith of baseball.

Ricky Bobby Knows Dirt

Will Ferrell's character Ricky Bobby is supposed to be a joke and I am definitely excited about the upcoming movie -- the commercials for it were much better than Sunday's race.

But I know Ricky Bobby. If you hang out at a dirt track around the South on a Friday or Saturday night you will see about 10 Ricky Bobbys.

Who's In First?

I feel as though I have to say something about the TNT coverage of last Sunday's race since I made my drunk monkey joke -- again, no offense to the drunk literate monkeys.

At one point TNT missed seven out of 10 restarts because they were away at commercial. I know this through the beauty of my DVR ( I will be expecting my check tomorrow Time Warner Cable). I actually rewound and counted. Then when I got my public relations packet from NASCAR and saw the race report I got mad. I saw there were 21 lead changes among 11 drivers and it shocked me. So I watched again and realized that TNT missed four or five green flag passes for the lead because it was focused on the exciting battle for 29th.

But my favorite parts though were when they were doing the "through the field" and the announcer would be talking about one driver and the producer would be broadcasting another car or when Benny Parsons would yell trouble in four and about 10 seconds later, when the cars had quit wrecking, the producer would decide to switch to the camera covering the wreck. I still haven't figured out what happened to Bobby Labonte in the race's waning laps.

NASCAR is never going to look anything but bush league if they continue to have TV partners like this.

Oh yeah, they are gone after this year.

Thank you, Tom Cruise.

Andy Cagle can be reached at acaglenc@earthlink.net.