In deepest winter, NASCAR begins own rites of spring

The lean, amber light of a winter late afternoon shines down upon trees laid bare by the season, their leaves long since dropped and blown away, their branches rustled by a chill wind. The squirrels and ducks and Canada geese have had the good sense to burrow or fly to warmer climes. It's the beginning of that long, desolate stretch between the holidays and springtime, when the decorations and party hats used to put a bright face on this dark, cold time of year are packed away and returned to the attic, and people bunker down until the earth begins to thaw.

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And then suddenly, startlingly, our collective hibernation is interrupted by the sound of engines, throaty roars that chase away the doldrums and let us know that, down in the land of orange groves and royal palms, men with wrenches and clipboards are preparing for the season at hand. No, it doesn't quite have the almost mystical connotation of "pitchers and catchers report," that singular phrase capable of sending grown men into fits of childlike giddiness. But the opening week of testing is NASCAR's own rite of spring, a period that heralds the time when this traveling circus will gather in short sleeves and warm breezes, and the wind chills of the present will seem like a bad dream.

The wheels begin turning again Monday at Daytona International Speedway, a mere 51 days after Jimmie Johnson clinched his second consecutive championship at Homestead, and just 31 days after he picked up a check worth more than $7 million in New York. Many of these guys never really stopped, spending the interim racing sprint or dirt cars on far-flung short tracks, or testing the real thing on the big speedways where they ply their trade. There might have been a week snowboarding in Colorado, or a long Christmas weekend on a Caribbean beach. But surely, the men who build and drive these vehicles could never push the upcoming campaign completely out of their heads. They couldn't afford to, really. There is no offseason in this sport, only a fleeting few off weeks.

And now they're over, and the machinery is beginning to turn again. Monday begins two weeks of testing at Daytona, followed by a week of media activities in metro Charlotte, followed by more testing in Las Vegas, followed by even more testing in California. And the momentum will gather and soon it will be the first week of February, when brows begin to furrow and faces turn serious as racers embark upon the earnest work of winning their sport's biggest race.

It is NASCAR's best time of year, its grandest stage. The Daytona 500 springs out of a barren sports landscape, that netherworld between the Super Bowl and the NCAA basketball tournament, almost as if Big Bill France placed it there on purpose. It commandeers a spotlight with nothing else to shine on, beaming all those shots of Florida sun and sand to all those snowbound points north, the one event powerful enough to alter how its sport is perceived around the globe. We saw that happen in 1979, when the first live television feed of the race, and the melee that followed, helped the series go national. We saw it happen again in 2001, when in death Dale Earnhardt made his sport more visible than it had ever been. And there's the potential for another landmark chapter this year, when the 50th Daytona 500 arrives amid all the fanfare and ceremony that NASCAR can provide.

It has to happen this way. Sure, reporters and public relations reps and fabricators may long for an extra week off, may shoot brief, envious glances at contemporaries in other sports that go fallow for much longer than 51 days. But by now, everyone is ready. The anticipation creeps into the bones. That first trip to Daytona, even to test before empty grandstands, provides a spike of adrenaline. You're not thinking of Dover and Martinsville and the 10 months ahead. You're thinking of that one event in that one place at that one time of year, and how it's all laid out so perfectly to give NASCAR a season-opening jolt. The reality of the grind is saved for Feb. 18, when thoughts turn to California.

These are indeed strange, wistful days -- the final, measured breath before an exhalation of noise and speed. Those late winter sunsets seem so gray, so forlorn, such harbingers of a long, cold darkness to come. But for those who make their living in racing, they signify something very different -- rebirth.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer