Lowe's Car! Lowe's Car! Lowe's Car!

An incredibly important phase of a race-

the pit stop-

a chance to gain or lose places because someone drops a lug nut.

Last year I spent three months on an internship working at the corporate headquarters for Lowe's Companies, Inc., the home improvement retailer. Wanting to fit in with the water cooler talk, I decided I'd learn as much as I could about NASCAR, and the Lowe's Car and driver, #48, Jimmie Johnson. Went to a couple of races. Loud cars going in circles, really fast. And I enjoyed learning about it- neat things like scuffing tires and bump drafting.

And I enjoyed watching J.J. have a great year, eventually winning the year's championship. And my kids got into it a bit, too. We visited the Hendricks Motorsports site, which houses JJ and the rest of the HMS team including Jeff Gordon. I got all the kids little HotWheels replicas of the #48 car, and they started also enjoying watching some of the racing.

JJ on a Sunday drive with his good friend Jeff.

One of the heartwarming moments (or disturbing, depending on your point of view) was my then 3 year old boy cheering as we watched a race: "Lowe's Car! Lowe's Car! Lowe's Car!" He seemed to be having so much fun as we watched the race and he played with his toy car.

And even though I haven't watched any American sports for quite a while (I see lots of rugby and soccer here with the Australians), I do check out the sports online, and today, lo and behold, Jimmie won his 5th race of the season (tops, even though he's sixth in the total points standing), setting himself up nicely for the Nextel Cup championship races at the end of the season.

Apparently he's much better in the stock car than he is on a golf cart. In the cart, on top of the cart- details, details... there's just NO way alcohol was involved with that one!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/racing/12/10/johnson.golf/index.html

Go Jimmie! Woo-hoo!