Daytona, Fla. — Over the years, Ol’ Sparky has learned there are some pretty powerful things in this world: locomotives, a John Force quarter-mile run, a neighbor who’s on the city planning board.

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Add to that an old umbrella.

Uh-huh, an old ... what?

Yep, an old umbrella.

You may remember that Ol’ Sparky was facin’ a pretty serious dilemma: To go or not to go. It had been a long time since Ol’ Sparky had missed a trip to Daytona, and, maybe not-so-coincidentally, it had been a while since Ford had won the Daytona 500.

So, the question became: Go again and escape the cold and the snow, or stay home and watch it on TV, certain that one of the Ford drivers would be givin’ interviews in Victory Lane.

You fans shouted, “Go!” although it was not in unison and it was more of a suggestion than a shout. The final vote was low-60-something to high-40-something, but, as they say at the track, “A win is a win.”

So, the Sparkster went.

Because it was such a late decision, not enough time, apparently, was devoted to preparation. And, because of that, nary an umbrella found its way into the Sparkster’s luggage.

But, after months of sub-zero temperatures and significant snowfalls, Ol’ Sparky figured a few raindrops were not goin’ to be annoyin’.

Funny how a few raindrops can quickly change your mind.

Race mornin’ would’ve dawned had there been fewer clouds, but, in actuality, it just kind of showed up. While walkin’ through the garage, Ol’ Sparky found a local, one who knew how to read the sky, and asked, “Are those rainin’ clouds, or just looks-like-rainin’ clouds?”

“Just looks-like-rainin’ clouds,” he replied.

And the Sparkster felt a little bit better about forgettin’ the umbrella back home.

It was about that time, a few hours before the scheduled start of the race, that Ol’ Sparky bumped into a Ford Oval on the shirt guy who is certainly in the know. He was holdin’ on with all his might to an old umbrella.

“You won’t need that,” the Sparkster told him.

“Oh, no,” was his reply. “I need it. We all need it. As long as I’m holdin’ onto this umbrella, it won’t rain. You watch, as soon as I put it down, it’ll rain. I’m not kidding. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

So, the rest of the morning and early afternoon, whenever the Sparkster saw the exec, he’d ask, “Still got it?”

And, sure enough, he’d say, “Yep,” even if it was just leanin’ against is leg or somethin’.

Later that night, as Matt Kenseth passed Elliott Sadler on lap 142 and the rains were comin’ and the cars were wreckin’ farther back in the field, that Ford executive, on the other side of the infield, flung an old umbrella across the room inside of the Ford tech trailer.

That’s when it started to rain.

And that’s how Matt Kenseth won the Daytona 500 and the Sparky-goes-to-the-Great-American-Race jinx came to an end.

Oh, sure, Ol’ Steady Matty had a lot to do with it, too, and new crew chief Drew Blickensderfer probably contributed as well. And, yeah, the pit crew and the crew members and all the guys back at the shop, and Jack Roush—sure, they probably all had somethin’ to do with it, too, but all Ol’ Sparky knows, is that while all of those people contributed to gettin’ Kenseth to the front of the field, it was an old umbrella, being flung deep within the infield of Daytona International Speedway, that made it rain.

And, on that old umbrella were two words: Roush Racing.

It was the first Daytona 500 victory for Roush, now known as Roush Fenway. The team had won three Cup races at Daytona before, most recently Jamie McMurray in ’07, but those wins were in the mid-summer race, when the attention of race fans is divided by parades and backyard barbeques.

Not the Daytona 500.

No attention is divided. The off season is too long.

Everybody knows who won the Daytona 500. Everybody remembers who won the Daytona 500.

Everybody knows about and remembers that great finish in 1976 when David Pearson limped across the finish line to give the Wood Brothers one of those Can-You-Believe-It wins.

And that was 33 years ago.

Ol’ Steady Matty is a more-than-worthy champion and ambassador for the sport.

He is a racer’s racer.

Just because he shuns the spotlight doesn’t mean anything more than he shuns the spotlight.

He is a great, great racer.

Plus, he’s very smart.

And, he is very funny; he just simply chooses not to share that with everybody, although that may now change with the biggest of his 17 career wins.

Sparky is very pleased that Ol’ Steady Matty drives a Ford.

Talk after the race turned to whether that win clinches a spot in the Hall of Fame for Kenseth.

Uh, of course, it does.

An argument could’ve been made that Matt Kenseth was a Hall of Fame driver before Sunday’s win. That just solidified it.

His resume highlights now include a championship, a Daytona 500 victory and a season in which he led all drivers in victories. He’s made the Chase every year there’s been a Chase. Some say he’s the reason there is a Chase; you know, after he led the standings for a record 33 consecutive weeks.

It’s a great way to punctuate a great career, but, in typical Steady Matty way, there’s still work to be done. He heads into this week’s race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana with the points lead.

And, he starts another streak.

Last year, Kenseth did not win a race for the first time since 2001. Funny, he won the last race of 2007 and the first race of 2009, but, still, the Streak had ended.

Oh, yeah, keep this in mind: the last time he went an entire season without a victory, the next year he led the series in that very same category.

Ford has been good in Fontana over the years, winning nine of the 17 races run there since 1997. That’s more than any other manufacturer. And, since they started runnin’ two races a year there, startin’ in 2004, Ford has won at least one of those races every year. Roush Fenway has six of those nine wins—includin’ two by, you guessed it, Matt Kenseth, who won there in 2006 and ’07. Carl Edwards won this race last year, and The Biff won it in ’05, so Roush Fenway and Ford carry a four-year event winnin’ streak.

And, let’s not let Kenseth’s victory overshadow the accomplishment of David Ragan last weekend. He started his third full season in the series with a sixth-place finish, similar to his fifth-place showin’ in the ’07 Daytona 500.

The NHRA season gets back at it this weekend, where, hopefully, it won’t rain like it did two weeks ago when the series tried to get goin’ at Pomona.

There was so much rain that the finals weren’t run until Tuesday.

Unfortunately, there was only one round of qualifyin' completed before the finals, so Ford newcomer Tim Wilkerson, who came very close to winnin’ the championship last year, didn’t make the show. But, expect Wilkerson and Tasca and the Forces and Hight and Neff all to be contenders this week and this year.

While makin’ sure an umbrella makes it to Fontana, Ol’ Sparky went through this week’s mailbag.

Dear Sparky:

Now that California has two races each year, I see that after opening the season in Daytona, FL, the race teams then head all the way out to Fontana, CA to race the very next week. Then, the next week is at Las Vegas, and then Atlanta. Do the teams’ trucks actually make the trip all the way to Florida to California and then back out to Las Vegas? It seems easier to just stop in Atlanta with one truck and then send another one out west for those two races. That sure seems like a lot of driving.

Tracy,
California

That is a great, great question, Tracy. You would think that it would be awfully difficult to drive right past Atlanta and go all the way to the West Coast when you eventually needed to be in Atlanta anyway, but that’s what the teams will do. Now, to take it a step further, the teams left Daytona Sunday night and returned to their North Carolina shops to load up for the long trip west. One of the teams told me the plan would be to send out the hauler plus a four-car hauler, carrying the Fontana and Vegas cars, and keep the hauler out there for two weeks. After Vegas, the haulers return to North Carolina before heading back out to Atlanta. Then, there’s a week off before the Martinsville race, so that’s when the hauler drivers will get a chance to rest. For a little bit, anyway.