number 88

If you do not know the significance behind this number, consider yourself lucky.

I am officially the mother of rednecks. I don't even know how it started. Here's my theory:

It happened one Sunday after church. It must have been raining. We must have told the boys they could watch a movie so we could take our "Sunday nap." Somehow they turned on the TV and found their way to NASCAR. Boy #1 got immediately addicted. I believe there is something within his male DNA that attracts him to a competition involving cars, speed, bright colors and funny accents from most of the participants. Okay, let's call them drawls, not funny accents, just to be nice. Out went the fascination with Corvettes and suddenly, he's rattling off statistics, car numbers and drivers and even the names of motor speedways.

It's unnerving. This child can remember just about anything he's read or heard about this sport. He has checked out at least 40 books on various NASCAR-related topics. He did his project fair project on his favorite driver - in car number 88 - Dale Earnhardt , Jr. and built "Larson Speedway" so he could show off his NASCAR cars. He has miniatures of both of Junior's 88 cars - the Amp Energy car and the National Guard car - and constantly pesters us with, "Which car do you like better?" I try my best to ignore him. Hubby purposely changes his mind every time he asks. Or keeps telling him he likes Kyle Busch better, just to upset the poor boy.

It has become an obsession. So much so, that cousins and uncles now play along, teasing him that Jr hasn't won a race or that so-and-so is a better driver or has a faster car or a cooler sponsor. All he wants to do is check stats online, listen to or watch a race, talk about the race or all the drivers and who made the pole, who spun out, who crashed and who got how many points. He has even tried to get his Dad to "play" NASCAR on the way to church Sunday mornings, especially if we happen to see someone we know traveling the two-lane highway at the same time.

"Dad, don't let them pass you! Come on, catch their draft!"

So, this is how I instantly know what the number 88 means, who drives it and the fact that today he finally won a race after something like 76 races since his last win. I can still hear the whoops and woo-hoos from the living room. It is also how I know that Kyle Busch drives a Toyota, Kurt Busch is his brother and his favorite meal is chicken wings and beer, Denny Hamlin is teammates with Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart (whose sponsor is Home Depot), Junior's teammates are Jeff Gordon (#24), Jimmie Johnson (#28) and Casey Mears (#5), Jimmie Johnson is sponsored by Lowes, Mark Martin retired this past year, Matt Kenseth drives the #17 Dewalt Tools car (which is a Ford), Carl Edwards drives #99 and is sponsored by Aflac and how I now know that Lowe's Motor Speedway is in North Carolina and only an hour from my brother's (so now all I'm hearing is begging to take a vacation there in October when the next race will be held).

This is all so sad.

Thank heavens we don't have cable - I can't imagine the NASCAR stats I'd be able to spout off then.