1,000 Greatest Drivers: Scott Pruett

Today I turn extra large in Roman numerals.

Yes, indeed. I turned officially middle age today. Perhaps I should celebrate by watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin or something (a movie that I have never seen). I was going to do Phil Hill and Felipe Fraga the last two days since those were the anniversaries of their first 12 Hours of Sebring win and first Stock Car Brasil win respectively, but I didn’t quite finish between my RotoBaller writing and having to fill the dumpster that was supposed to be picked up today but hasn’t been yet. The code enforcement officer has now given permission for my mom to leave the nursing home, but the social worker there has not. Now that it’s getting warmer and I don’t necessarily need to clean out more of the house for my mom to potentially come home, I’m planning on visiting her every weekday now, although the buses in Syracuse don’t run on the weekends. I don’t think this should really affect my schedule as much now, especially as I’m waiting for other work to come in from other sources. I’ll just write these after the last bus returns to North Syracuse when I’m not with her.

I was originally going to do Gary Paffett today since I was planning on covering Pruett in the week leading up to the 24 Hours of Daytona, but since I ended up pre-empting all my January columns, I decided to move him here because Pruett is definitely more historically important than Paffett and the best driver born on my birthdate. (Or rather, I was born on his 25th birthday, which means he is officially becoming a senior citizen on the same day I am officially turning middle age.) This column was pretty dense and it did take me hours to trim because he did so much stuff. I’m planning four heavy hitters and likely top 100 candidates this week. In addition to Pruett today, I’m planning Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, and Cale Yarborough for the next three days, so this is going to be a big week for this blog.