Speedweeks came, went in a rush ... but oh the sights

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Daytona Speedweeks and vacations have one very glaring common fact: They come and go before you hardly even knew they were there.

And so it was for Speedweeks 2009, which ended, literally, via a cloudburst after 152 laps of Sunday's Daytona 500.

If you're lucky enough -- and of course, that's a very relative term -- to be in the middle of it for any extent, Speedweeks consists of a number of vignettes that are alternately poignant, joyful, incomprehensible, agonizing, rewarding and even sometimes downright refreshing.

In no particular order, here's a few that stood out for me.

Lil' Boris, when he was just 3.

1on1: Boris Said

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What Daytona 500?

To steal a well-used movie tag line, all I could think as I rolled through the Cup garage at Daytona an hour or so after the second 150-mile qualifying race last Thursday was "Daytona 500? We don' need no stinkin' Daytona 500!"

You see, even as Boris Said's crestfallen crew loaded their torn-up No. 08 Ford back into its hauler, unsuccessful for the second consecutive year trying to make the Great American Race, little Boris Jr. -- 5 years old and with his mop of loosely curled blonde hair waving in the wind -- was dancing about atop the pit cart that was parked behind the hauler.

He looked like he didn't have a care in the world and let's face it -- he's 5, he shouldn't. Later, when I came back from hitting my target in the far end of the garage, the lil' guy was hand-in-hand with his dad and a friend as Boris explained how his day had ended with a deflated tire.

The kid was taking advantage of their great support by swinging back and forth, his little feet virtually never standing still, loving life and being in what was the most pressure-packed area in motorsports, on that one day.

It's why children are the most pure exclamation of feelings there is. It was also why rules about garage area age limits don't work when you're around NASCAR's elite, and I'm OK with that. (Continued)