Live from Talladega

Sports Editor Bran Strickland here. I'm sitting in the infield media center at Talladega Superspeedway.

They've belted out "God Bless America" and fooled half of the media center, thinking it was the other song. You can only see some singing on the monitors, and none of us could read lips.

OK, I'm back. Right in the middle of this, they had the "National Anthem," and I didn't want to be rude. They also had the flyover. It was four jets, looked to be F-15s, which I want to address ...

We're smack dab in the middle of a fuel crisis. I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to be that a jet -- much less four of them -- uses a ton of fuel, which could be better served in somebody's car.

And you think they do this stuff all the time, why?

I think we'd all be just as happy if we didn't have flyovers. But maybe NASCAR covers the cost of fuel. And I know that the cars on the track today use a lot of gas, too, but in my mind, it's there money. Those jets, though, might be using tax-payer gas.

OK, my rant is over. I'll check back in throughout the race and keep you up to date.