Checkered Flag

I'll just say it. I LOVE NASCAR! I love the competition, the personalities, the excitement, the speed - all of it. I look forward to every weekend so I can watch another race & I'm disappointed on weekends when they don't have one. Then when the season ends, I am devastated.

The thing that gets me through NASCAR's off-season is watching football. I love it, too. But NASCAR is my favorite.

All the races & tracks are different. Some races are during the day; some are at night. Some tracks are a little boring; then others are always exciting - like Bristol, Talledega, Daytona, Richmond. Those are always good.

I have my favorite drivers, too. My #1 driver is the #24 - Jeff Gordon. He grew up in a small town not too far from here. I've always liked him and I realize some people don't like him so I'll stop talking about him now.

There are several other drivers that I like -
Jeff Burton (and his older brother, Ward - but he's not racing anymore),
Tony Stewart - also from Indiana,
Bobby Labonte (and his older brother, Terry - but he retired),
Michael Waltrip - what a character!
Dale Earnhardt Jr - why not?
Carl Edwards - love the back flip when he wins.

While all of this NASCAR stuff is enjoyable & exciting for me, I got a different kind of surprise during the telecast of the Richmond race last Saturday night. I saw a commercial I never thought I would see the likes of during a NASCAR race. It was a commercial for One Touch and the Hand project from TuDiabetes. I was actually on the computer at the time & didn't see the entire thing. So I didn't realize what it was until I caught a glimpse of the hand at the end of the commercial. I almost cried. Wow!

Diabetes & NASCAR - a combination I never thought I would see. Diabetes - something I don't like, but have to deal with 24-7 and NASCAR - my favorite sport to watch. What a surprise! We're just popping up everywhere now! How cool is that?!

Then I started thinking about all the different flags they wave during a NASCAR race & how they are similar to our lives.
We get the green flag when we're diagnosed with diabetes - new green flags are waved everyday when new people are diagnosed.
Then come all the caution (yellow) flags. We get those all the time throughout our lives with diabetes. Highs, lows, unexplainable A1Cs, miscounting carbs, stress, etc.
Hopefully, we never see the red flag when the race is stopped because something really bad has happened. I don't like those. Complications - lets just leave it at that.
But then - if only there would be a checkered flag to signify the end of diabetes & we all win. That's a flag I would like to see.

Here's to that checkered flag!