Went to see “Cars” with the ogwife and the oglet.

Any movie with Pixar animation, with cars, the voices of Mike Schumaker, Richard Petty, George Carlin, Paul Newman? Had to be goood. And it did not disapoint.

I have always maintained that a sport has no meaning unless something dead comes home with you, and i jokingly say that includes hunting fishing and nascar. Of course, nobody WANTS to see anyone get hurt- in fact everyone wants everyone to come home healthy- but we all LOVE to see the drivers mix it up.

I also don’t get choked up in movies, not for a long time. But goofy as it is, I got choked up during this movie- but not for the uusual reasons.

Spoiler below the fold..

One of the racers is Richard Petty, and he’s called ‘the King” in the movie- anyway, toward the end, he has a horrible wreck, and our hereo, rather than cross the finish line, as would be his right, goes back and pushes the King across the finish line, so he can at least finish his last race.

This got to me, and got to me enough that my eyes were wet, and it did so for one reason:

Bettenhausen.

Having bee an indy fan for ever and ever, I have, like a LOT of indy fans, felt that in a perfect world, one indy would consist of all the drivers pitting at the 199th lap and lettting a Bettenhausen cross that line.

THe Bettenhausen family is one of the grand old names of Indy racing, and for years and years I hoped and even prayed that a bettenhousen would finish first at Indy. Those days are behind us, now, and that can now never happen. But as Lighting pushed The King across that finish line in that goofy, corny movie, I thought about the tremendous amount of heart brought to Indy by the Bettenhausen family, the tragedy that befell the family over and over again, and the indy victory that eluded them.

Gary, Tony, rest in peace. Thanks for the years of good racing, may all the pitstops in heaven be short ones, and may you win every race.

If Jagdork Danica showed one one hundredth of the respect the Bettenhausen’s had for the sport of Auto racing, I’d clean her race car with my ballsack.