PIT STOPS FROM DAYTONA
Farrington brings gold medal glow
After a week in New York on the talk-show circuit (hitting Late Show with David Letterman and Live with Kelly and Michael), Kaitlyn Farrington made a stop at the Daytona 500 on Sunday.
Next up for the snowboard halfpipe gold medalist is a muchneeded break.
“I’ve got nothing else to do,” said the Sun Valley, Idaho, native who won her event Feb. 12 at the Sochi Games. “I’ll keep snowboarding and hopefully go to the Olympics in South Korea.”
Farrington, who had a seat in an honorary race official car for Sunday’s pace laps, said she surprised a lot of people after being the final snowboarder named to the U.S. team in mid-January.
“I went there expecting to make the finals, and to walk away with a gold medal was unbelievable,” she said.
Having had time to evaluate domestic news media coverage of the Winter Olympics, Farrington said the Games weren’t as unprepared as it might have seemed.
“The biggest story over here was the hotel rooms, but for us, it wasn’t anything like that,” she said. “The media really played it up. That was the main story that was a little different over there.”
Fox’s 2013 replay fools fans on TV
The rain delay that halted the 2014 Daytona 500 after 38 laps threw a wrench into Fox’s broadcast schedule.
When it became apparent that the delay would stretch for hours, Fox re-aired the 2013 Daytona 500, which featured Danica Patrick as the pole-sitter.
Many fans didn’t realize the race unfolding on their televisions had already happened, and when the replay reached its conclusion, 2013 winner Jimmie Johnson was trending on Twitter.
Fox News sent an alert that Johnson had won the 2014 race. Johnson tweeted that he was getting texts from friends congratulating him. Fox News later apologized.
‘Bachelor’ star in the spotlight
Among the celebrities at the Daytona 500 on Sunday was Juan Pablo Galavis, star of ABC’s The
Bachelor.
Galavis said the Daytona 500 was the first race he had attended since he was about 12 and living in Venezuela.
“As soon as I got here this morning and I got a little test drive from one of the drivers, Ty (Dillon), I was scared for a bit,” he said. “But it was lovely. I’m looking forward to the engines, the cars next to each other.”
Despite his enthusiasm for the race, Galavis said he was not a fast driver and had only gotten one speeding ticket.
Galavis smiled when asked about possible spoilers for the show. “I love surprises, so you guys will be surprised on March 10,” he said.
National anthem for the masses
A day after NASCAR fans cringed and drivers laughed through a bizarre national anthem before the Nationwide Series race, Daytona 500 anthem singer Aloe Blacc promised a more restrained performance.
Saturday, rock band Madison Rising did what many thought was an over-the-top version of the anthem in an attempt to be patriotic. But it came off like something from Saturday Night
Live instead. Blacc said he heard about the performance but told news reporters not to worry.
“I come from a military family,” he said. “My dad is a retired major in the Marine Corps. When it comes to the anthem, you honor the country and you sing it so everybody can sing it with you.”