http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?...v=st&type=lgns

FORT WORTH, Texas (Ticker) - Race drivers are probably the most
superstitious competitors in sports.

From green race cars, to $50 bills, to peanut shells in the garage area and
other taboos, NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers have a list of things they try to
avoid on race day.And after a Friday the 13th storm canceled qualifications
for Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway even the most confident
drivers admit to being superstitious.

For Clint Bowyer, he believes his car number, 07, is lucky, even though he's
most famous for being the driver of the car that flipped upside down and
slid across the finish line on fire at the end of February's Daytona 500.

"I don't know if I should consider that lucky or not," Bowyer said. "If I
find a penny heads-up on race day, it's always going to be a good day. I
always put my left glove on first. I get that stuff from my grandma."

Bowyer said he was more superstitious in his short-track days because
eventually, all superstitions wear off. But in the Nextel Cup series, car
preparation has become a science with engineering and other resources
determining the winners and losers.

But there is always room for luck in NASCAR.

"You have to have Lady Luck on your side," Bowyer said. "The guy that wins
the championship, it doesn't matter what series you are in, what you are
racing, he's lucky. At one point or another in the season, something went
his way which just as easily could have gone another way."

Bowyer said in his early days, he'd wear the same racing shoes every race
and the same gloves. But in NASCAR, the gloves are turned over to charitable
causes after each race.

Even the biggest name in the series has superstition in the back of his
mind.

"I don't have specific superstitious but walking under ladders and all that
standard stuff, I'm always aware of that and breaking mirrors," said Dale
Earnhardt Jr., whose father was one of the more superstitious drivers in the
garage area during his career.

But Earnhardt admits he has grown fond of some of his race cars that
featured special paint schemes to promote a product. He believes some of
those cars have brought him good luck.

"My sponsor likes to be very consistent and have a red car on the race
track," Earnhardt said. "They like to do special paint schemes when it has
substance to it, some meaning. They just don't want to throw a silver car on
the track just to be doing it.

"The car we ran on Father's Day last year at Michigan was a favorite of
mine. I would love to run it again. And the original baseball car was also a
favorite of mine I would like to run again."

That particular car promoted the 2001 Major League Baseball All-Star game
and had special meaning because Earnhardt won the 2001 Pepsi 400 at Daytona
International Speedway. It was young Earnhardt's first race back at that
track after his father was killed in the last turn of the last lap of that
year's Daytona 500.

And of course, the special Father's Day paint scheme was important because
he helped the NASCAR star remember the legendary dad that won seven Cup
championships.

Drivers back in Richard Petty's day were extremely superstitious. One of the
worst was the legendary Junior Johnson. But today's younger drivers don't
seem to focus on that as much as those in earlier days.

"It's because they haven't had enough experience of bad things to buy into
it," Jeff Burton said. "You do this long enough and you'll start believing
almost anything. The older you get, the more you see things happening, the
more you wonder why. I think that's where superstitions came from originally
and that's why they get enhanced.

"Do I have some superstitions? I do. Some that are kinda quirky.

Burton refused to reveal his superstitions, saying, "I'm superstitious about
my superstitions."

Defending NASCAR Nextel Cup champion Jimmie Johnson admits he used to have
an unusual good-luck charm early in his career.

"I had a lucky pair of boxer shorts," Johnson said. "I thought that was it
but when they quit working, I had to get a new pair. They were exhausted. I
felt like I needed to wear them because I had them on during key races and
thought that was my good-luck charm."

Kenny Wallace has been in the sport for over two decades. He remembers when
his father, Russ Wallace, would win a heat race back in Missouri, if Kenny
had gone to the bathroom before that heat, and then he made sure he went to
the bathroom before the feature race.

"I tried to make sure I did everything exactly the same," said the younger
brother of Rusty Wallace. "I'm not superstitious, but I really don't test
it.

"If green is bad, then I don't really like having green around. If peanuts
are bad, I don't have them around. I don't test it, that's for sure."

"Mike D" <doolok (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote


<snip>

Oh boy. Another Janal sock puppet. My how clever you are. (rolls eyes)

On Apr 14, 8:03?pm, "Mike D" <doo... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Don't you know that it is bad luck ..to be superstitious ?