Greg Bailey WCNC Sports Director

King Kasey

I'll call the race at LMS "good" but not quite "great." It was a really good show, but when I dish out the "great" label I want to see racing for the lead in the final laps. We did get a great show for long stretches with lead changes, big names and plenty of action.

What a turnaround from Kasey Kahne. Last night on Sports Extra I said that Kasey had just sat in the media center only a few days earlier and told us that his team wasn't good enough and had to get better to compete at an elite level. Bang! Win the All-Star race then turn around and win the Coca-Cola 600. Suddenly the man who dominated at LMS back in 2006 is dominating again in Charlotte.

Kahne did it on tires more than he did it on gas. Hats off to the #9 Bud crew for recognizing that the new car needs fresh tires, especially on the right side. Lesson learned for Tony Stewart. I understand his frustration, but the Home Depot team got beat on pit road. It's not just great when other teams do it. It's part of racing and it's always a big part of winning, even when it's not the dramatic last stop when one team beats another in and off pit road.

The star of the night was the group of fans that narrowly avoided getting hurt by Brian Vickers' flying tire. Somehow that thing just broke free and turned into a missile. Everyone is lucky they weren't hurt, and we can all be thankful that a great day at the track went smoothly from there. Bill Peterson is the fan who got his grill smashed by the tire. He showed our cameras the damage and showed everyone that it really was a close call. Photographer Frankie Gunnell got a volunteer to "re-enact" what might have happened if someone got hit with the tire. He was ready with ketchup to show what the wounds might have looked like. We operate under the belief that our volunteer was feeling no pain after a long afternoon in the infield.

Race fans in Charlotte should be proud of themselves for showing up en masse. $4 gas and all the stands were all but full and the nation got to see how it's really done. It's a great measure of what race weekend and Memorial Day mean to the people in our area. I have no doubt that a good number of the fans who showed up did that to bid farewell to Humpy Wheeler. He deserved it and was spot on when he thanked the fans in his farewell. Wonderful and appropriate -- vintage Humpy. I hope to see him soon. I bet I will.

Road to Recovery

Memorial Day weekend at the Coca-Cola 600 was right there in front of all of us to talk to and listen to. Thousands of American servicemen and women lined up on the track. Every one of them is remarkable. Every one of them volunteered to serve all of us. One after another they told me that when they hear "thank you" it means a great deal to them. I plan on saying "thank you" more often.

The men and women of the Road 2 Recovery bike ride made an impression I will never forget. Many of them have suffered catastrophic injuries serving in the Middle East. Captain Ferris Butler came home to 52 surgeries. It's a staggering number and when he told me that, I imagined all of the pain and anguish that came with every one. His 53rd surgery changed his life. Captain Butler (that will be official within a matter of days, his latest promotion) made the decision to have doctors amputate his leg. In a matter of weeks people at Walter Reed told Butler he needed to take a 10 mile bike ride with them. After 18 months in a wheelchair he thought that was impossible. But he tried. And that's where his latest round of heroism comes in. He tried. Instead of quitting after surgery 12 or surgery 42, Ferris Butler just kept trying.

He made that bike ride with his prosthetic leg. And just a few months later he joined the Road 2 Recovery bicycle ride from Washington D.C. to Charlotte. Butler didn't ride every mile, but he rode more than his share of the six-day, 480-mile marathon.

Along the road people stopped to salute. It made the next ten miles go easily. Another day a veteran stopped on the roadside and pulled up his pant leg to reveal his own prosthetic leg. He saluted, too. That made the next 50 miles seem easy. Simple acknowledgments made a remarkable group of people even better. They were already amazing to begin with.

Specialist Justin Clark couldn't wait to talk to our camera crew. That Justin can talk at all is mind boggling. He suffered a serious brain injury a few years ago in Iraq. He stutters a mile a minute, but he talks about 3 miles a minute and that makes it great to hear him. His enthusiasm for everything makes you believe. Believe in life, the human spirit and men who are willing to make this sacrifice. Clark says he aches after riding a good chunk of the 480 miles, but "that's why they make Icy Hot." He rode a recumbent bike that you sit down on. It looks kind of like a trike and an exercise bike combined. He grinned ear to ear as he rounded the turn onto pit road for the end of their parade lap.

Specialist Clark also told us he's getting married. He said it "sounds good, but I don't really know." He laughed and we all laughed harder. I left knowing this is a man who has found more good in life than most of us will ever know. How is that possible when he has suffered so much? The answer is simple: he's a better person than I am. My "thank you" for him doesn't seem like nearly enough.

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