This weekend was the beginning of the 2008 racing season, with the Rolex 24 at Daytona kicking things off. We’ve been pretty lucky here in The Garage to get some killer pit lane coverage from Will Faules, while yours truly runs from the SpeedTV coverage to the kids hockey games. Somehow, I even managed to get a nap in this afternoon while I tried to prepare myself for this week’s CoW. That said, it has been a long crazy day with the emphasis on crazy. I’m going to begin this week’s CoW with one quick but striking submission and then I’ll finish up tomorrow.

Over the past months, I have noticed an increasing amount of traffic to The Garage coming from India. Recently the CoW has been flooded with submissions from Indian auto bloggers, which really give us North Americans some idea how many enthusiasts there are in this far away land. None have made me realize quite how different our worlds are so much as CoW newcomer Sidhusaaheb who writes:

It appears almost surreal now. For all of a hundred and twelve rupees, a nearly destitute, sometimes-employed man like me could go and take a close look at some of the loveliest automobiles in the world. Twelve rupees, incidentally, was the to and fro fare for the train ride between home and the venue of the exposition i.e. Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, with the rest being the entry fee.

I’ve been excited to follow our man to Daytona this weekend, while real car guys like Sidhusaaheb hop on a train to grab a glimpse of the vehicles we see every day. The sight of an H2 is a great highlight, where here we see soccer moms battling for a parking spot in them every day. It shows that we are all car enthusiasts, regardless of our location or means, yet our worlds are so very different that many of us experience things daily that others may never even see.

I’m not feeling very eloquent right now, but Sid’s post has affected me.

See you tomorrow, for the rest of the CoW.

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