Who's your guy?

NASCAR. SILLY RIDICULOUS NASCAR.

I am not a NASCAR fan. No boogedy boogedy for me. No, let's go racing. No numbers on the back of my car. It's a dirty word to me. DIRTY WORD. Wanna call me a girl? Wanna tell me I don't get it? Well, back off. This is the house of racing and I am a child of a certified gear head. F1 baby. That's where it's at. NASCAR is little more than a Sunday afternoon game of bumper cars infused with cheap beer and gobs of heart-stopping food. And love handles.

You be the judge of my basis to make these claims? I know racing. It's in my blood.

Daughter of one life-long Porsche owner. A mechanical engineer who spent many a weekend working on his car, a little girl named Gretchen ready to hand him the tools he needed and watching in wonder as this engineer brought his cars to life. He was a driving instructor at Watkins Glen. Many a Sunday I sat on the couch with him while he watched Champ Car races (no IRL back then), though I was no doubt waiting for the moment when he fell asleep so I could steal the remote. As soon as I changed the channel, one eye would open: "I'm watching that." Rats. Sunday means open wheeled racing.

And then there is The Boy, my dear Jamie who is also an unbelievable mechanic/engineer, who built his own Cobra, who revived a dead Corvette, and who is a member of the Bonneville Salt Flats 150 club. He raced for a year. He's fast. He's even faster in the rain. He's one serious driving stud. I brought him over to F1.

I must finally pay homage to dear Denton, the man who introduced me to F1. Sunday after Sunday, we ambled downstairs to watch the races in 2000, the year of Schumacher. It was because of him that I decided to go to Indy in 2001, just after 9/11, to see the F1 circus for myself. Attended every Grand Prix at Indy since until they stupidly stopped hosting. It is because of him that I fell in love with men like Mark, Kimi, Mika, Lewis, Rubens, David, Suto, etc. Denton: THANK YOU.

My Sunday mornings are spent listing to my beloved Bob Varsha, my dear David Hobbs, the scholar Steve Matchette, and my future husband in another life, Peter Gorgeous Windsor. I love that man.

AND I change my own oil.

So I am a car girl. I know my stuff. I love the races. But I am not and never will be a NASCAR fan. I don't care if Montoya headed over to the dark side. I don't care if Villenueuve is racing trucks (no one ever liked him anyway). NASCAR: no. NO. no. F1? That's what it's all about and we Americans need to get on the damn bandwagon. WHAT IS IT WITH NASCAR? It's more abotu the beer than the driving excitment, it's more about talking shit than about the complexities of racing, it's about behaving badly (and I've seen you people in action). F1 -- it's .... just so much BETTER.

I'm starting a series of blogs about this. I'm inspired. And PETER WINDSOR: you need to hire me to support your F1 team. Look out. I'm the voice of the American Woman F1 fan. We're endangered. You need me.