..Polish victory lap..

[Miller, Jerry]

I would just add, before someone asks, that the naming of the clockwise
victory lap was not a creation of "Polish humor" in the usual, politically
incorrect sense. Kulwicki, who was of Polish descent, did make it something
of a joke against himself when he did it. But it is now quite serious as a
tribute to Kulwicki, who, after winning the 1992 NASCAR championship, was
killed in a plane crash. Many race winners did the reverse lap in his memory
in the months after his death, and now it seems to have been revived, still
in his honor (the "frontstretch" Web site below includes the comments of
Rusty Wallace, who noted that after he bypassed the currently common
post-victory "doughnuts" and/or "burnouts" for a Polish victory lap
recently).

And now you know the rest of the story (whether you wanted it or not).

Jerry Miller
jmiller at franklincollege.edu


> -----Original Message-----
> From: GSCole [SMTP:gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 8:50 AM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      ..Polish victory lap..
>
> Today's sports pages (24 SEPT 2001) carried an item about the winner of
> a race at Dover (Delaware) Downs International Speedway.  It was noted
> that the winner "drove the famed 'Polish victory lap'".
>
> A search of the web finds the following site which identifies the Polish
> Victory Lap as being a calculated creation of Alan Kulwicki, in ~1988.
>
> http://www.frontstretch.com/varner/varner0403.htm
>
> Sorry for any redundancy of information for those who avidly follow
> NASCAR events, but this is something of a new phrase for me.
>
> George Cole
> gscole at ark.ship.edu
> Shippensburg University