HEMBREE: Apocalypse Saturday? Does CMS Know?

Sprint Cup

HEMBREE: Apocalypse Saturday? Does CMS Know?

Some say the world gets the checkered flag Saturday…

Mike Hembree | Posted May 20, 2011 Concord, NC

SPEED.com NASCAR Editor Mike Hembree is a veteran, award-winning motorsports journalist. (File Photo)

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You might have noticed that one fairly prominent minister is saying that the world will end Saturday.

This might be a little unsettling, but it certainly is not surprising. People – pundits, seers, fortune-tellers and, particularly, preachers – have been predicting the end of time as we know it for as long as there have been other people around to listen. When radio and then television appeared, those predictions seemed to multiply. Virtually every person with a hymnal, a microphone and a way to buy some television time had figured out the day and time of the final curtain.

The most amazing thing about many of these folks is not their audacious predictions. It’s the fact that they proclaim the end of the world for a particular day of a particular week, but they want you to send in a donation the next week despite the fact that there supposedly will not be an address to receive it and no postal person to make the delivery.

The part of this most recent prediction – made by Family Radio Worldwide minister Harold Camping – that is most stunning, however, is that the promotional machine that is Charlotte Motor Speedway has not found a way to tie this apocalyptic happening into that other apocalyptic happening – the Sprint Cup All-Star Race.

Both are scheduled to happen on the same day, after all. I seem to recall seeing a movie many years ago that suggested the world would end during an automobile race. Coincidence?

Imagine the billboards CMS could have used:

“See The World End As Kevin Harvick Smashes Kyle Busch In The Face!”

“You Want Armageddon? It’s The Last 10 Laps!”

“Fast Times! Fast Cars! Fast Exits From Grandstands! (No Refunds)”

“Hot – Very Hot – Dogs! Half-Price In The Infield!”

“Stay All Weekend At The Track! No Work Monday!”

Charlotte Motor Speedway is home to three annual Sprint Cup races. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

If that promotional genius Humpy Wheeler still ran the machinery at CMS, we could pin all this on him. If somebody hadn’t already predicted disaster, Humpy probably would have paid someone to do it.

The Associated Press has quoted Camping, an 89-year-old who doesn’t appear to be a race fan, as saying that, “Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the rapture and the day of judgment.”

That sounds pretty solid.

I would not want to be Kevin Harvick or Kyle Busch, who are already on probation.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

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