Dale Jr Hands Out Grilled Cheese In North Carolina Town

There are times when Dale Earnhardt Jr.  wakes up and does Dale Earnhardt Jr. things.  You know, talks NASCAR, goes to the track, is interviewed about the state of stock car racing, etc.  Then there are days that Dale Earnhardt Jr. looks at his schedule and says, "I'm doing WHAT?!"  Yesterday had to be one of those days.  Dale Earnhardt Jr spent his day representing Hellmann's mayonnaise, and handing out grilled cheese sandwiches in, wait for it, TOAST, North Carolina (I couldn't make that up if I tried).

This is not as random as it may seem at first glance.  Hellmann's Mayonnaise is a long-time sponsor for Junior.  So him making a public appearance on behalf of the company is not an eye-opener.  That being said, there's a couple of creative things about this gig that I love.  First?  Toast, NC is a quaint North Carolina town adjacent to Mount Airy.  Yup, a town called "Toast" is "Mayberry's" next door neighbor.  Again, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.  Second, I would have love to have been in the "What are we going to do with Dale Jr in Toast" meeting.  Specifically, I'd love to have been there when it was suggested, "I know, let's have Dale Earnhardt Jr. hand out grilled cheese!"

And there you go.  So, yesterday afternoon the gossip mill of Toast, North Carolina must have been churning like never before.  Can't you just imagine, "You know Mildred, I swear I saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. handing out grilled cheese sandwiches out of a gigantic Hellmann's mayonnaise truck."

"Ethel Thayer, you're crazy.  There's no way Dale Earnhardt Jr. is here in Toast-much less handing out free grilled cheese sandwiches.  I've never heard such a thing."

Then, lo and behold, Ethel was on the money.  The reason folks were spotting Dale Earnhardt Jr in Toast, North Carolina yesterday was he was there with Hellmann's espousing the virtues of using mayonnaise instead of butter or margarine when making a grilled cheese sandwich.  And for good measure, Dale Jr. was handing out samples.

Yessir, quite a day next door to Mayberry.

Crashing ruins the promise of a race day for NASCAR betting fans as well as drivers. It is possible for multiple cars to slide sideways at some tracks, sending the unluckiest among them taking heavy damage and ending their events early. Bookies.com crunched the data and found out which NASCAR drivers wreck the most and which wreck the least.

See the rest of the current NASCAR Cup Series drivers ranked by the percentage of races they have finished in their careers here.

You may be surprised by some of these numbers. First, it's obvious that the Dillon boys are grandchildren of a race team owner because they know how to take care of equipment. Harvick, for example, has averaged fewer than two DNFs per season over a period of two decades. Good drivers don't just compete but also avoid other drivers' messes, and the prospect of a crash shouldn't deter any bettor from backing them.

McDowell is on the other end of this list. Firstly, he won the 2021 Daytona 500, so we know he can race at a high level in extremely tight traffic. The reason why McDowell's crash rates are so high is that he raced for lower-end teams during the "start-and-park" era following the 2008 financial crash-when sponsors dried up, NASCAR race fields got sparse, and shoestring teams were able to collect a few grand by taking the checkered flag, coasting at the back for a few laps, and then reporting a breakdown.