Danica Patrick was first woman to start on the pole at the Daytona 500, led a lap and finished in 8th place. That gave her the highest finish for a woman in the 500 and helped make that “Danica Patrick just immediately drives her car into everybody else’s cars because LOL” joke a little less accurate.

Here, she’s making a guest appearance in the “Shoot The Puck” contest during second intermission at Tuesday’s Chicago Blackhawks/Minnesota Wild playoff game, chatting loosely with Susannah Collins about how she’s only here to see the fights and then totally draining a shot from center-ice on her first try. It’s remarkable. It also reeks of beginners luck — her next three shots don’t come anywhere close to goal — but that complicates the narrative. Danica Patrick is SUDDENLY GREAT AT HOCKEY and we have to deal with that.

Video (with a nasty habit of autoplaying) is after the jump.

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I'm on to you, KCCI news video editor.

It was a scary scene for one driver and racing fans during a recent event at the Boone Speedway in Boone, Iowa. Race car driver Danny Watson experienced a broken axle after his vehicle hit a hole on the racetrack and his car burst into flames. He would have been a goner for sure, but fortunately another driver’s bravery led to Watson’s life being saved.

Richard Yaw was trailing Watson when the accident occurred and he was able to stop his vehicle and exit his car in time to pull Watson from his own flaming car in a beautiful moment of sportsmanship, heroics and friendship.

Watson was knocked unconscious and was quickly running out of time as the fire raged through his disabled vehicle. Yaw, who was right behind Wilson when the crash occurred pulled his own stock car over and ran to his friends aid. With his helmet still on Yaw jumped from his car and into the smoke and flames.

“I owe him my life,” Watson told the news station. (Via AOL)

And they both said some other stuff about how scary this was or whatever, but I totally became distracted when I saw Yaw’s t-shirt in this local news interview.

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It’s very difficult to share a news story that starts with, “a man shot himself at the NRA 500,” and give it the proper gravity. A guy died, you know? That’s not funny.

At the same time, it’s so thematically notable that it makes sports bloggers feel like Oscar f**king Wilde, so we’ve got to talk about it. Here’s what happened at the Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night:

Fort Worth police have said a man who was camping in the infield died of a “self-inflicted injury” after getting into an argument with other campers. The incident happened late in the Sprint Cup race.

Police spokeswoman Cpl. Tracey Knight has said alcohol may have been a factor. Knight said several people witnessed the incident, but nobody was in danger.

Track spokesman Mike Zizzo say the death occurred “in or around a pickup truck” in part of the infield near the middle of the backstretch. (via AP)

I’ve read this a few times now, and aside from the obvious stuff (“guy shoots self at gun race”), the “in or around a pickup truck” part is hanging me up. My guess is that the track spokesman didn’t want somebody assuming the guy killed himself in a stock car or whatever, but at the risk of being assumptive and stereotypical, doesn’t EVERYTHING at a NASCAR race happen in or around a pickup truck? I say this as a proud, adoptive resident of Texas. “I bought some cotton candy in or around a pickup truck,” etc.

Predictably, not everyone believes a guy could shoot himself at an event sponsored by gun enthusiasts. Some folks are saying the story has been fabricated by the Elitist Liberal Media — Piers Morgan has already lost his shit about the NRA 500 a few times, and he pretty much does his show in a t-shirt reading “Elite Liberal Media” — so let’s jump over to YouTube and see what’s reasonable.

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Next Media Animation’s “Taiwan Animation” of the Daytona crash has all the absurdity and hyperbole you’d expect — fans being killed and turned into cheering ghosts, all the cars being Toyota Corollas because they don’t have a stock car stock animation, NASCAR literally erasing the video from YouTube — but the best part is easily the fact that nobody at NMA thought, “hey, it’s probably a bad idea to ask NASCAR fans what they think of this insulting, wacky parody video made by Asians.”

From the YouTube description:

As every NASCAR fan knows, you come for the crashes and stay for the races. But are NASCAR officials taking fan safety seriously enough?

NASCAR fans are stoic. Talk to any fan and they will admit to accepting some level of risk when watching the races live. Furthermore, the fine print on the back of admissions tickets would seem to absolve race officials of liability if fans are injured.

But despite the risks, are NASCAR officials doing enough to ensure no fan is ever hurt? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Predictably, NASCAR fans left their thoughts.

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And now, the most important sports moment of the weekend:

In the third round of the 2013 Waste Management Phoenix Open, brothers Brent and Kip Henley race to the green at the 16th hole and Brent takes a tumble.

By “takes a tumble” they mean “faceplants.” Video is below.

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When I first heard about this story, I was mad. The two things that make me maddest are (1) people who are dicks to animals, and (2) finally getting to write a FLORIDA OR OHIO story and finding out it happened in neither.

I can only feel so badly about this one, however, because it is the comedy gift that keeps on givin’. Meet Gary Wayne Ericcson, the 46-year old North Carolina man who mourned the death of his beloved pet snake by shooting it, then went to jail for animal cruelty because he couldn’t reasonably explain why he’d want to shoot up a dead snake. His rationale is almost poetically southern:

But Ericcson says the snake, which he said was named Anonymous, had died before the shooting.

“I couldn’t bury him or the other animals would get him,” Ericcson told NBC Charlotte, the Observer’s news partner. “I had to shoot it to get the gas out of him, then I was going to burn him.”

Ericcson said the snake was his pet for about 17 years. “I’ve had that snake since he was so small he could just wrap around your wrist,” he said. “Me and my wife can’t have kids, so the animals are our kids.” (via Charlotte Observer)

If a man naming his child-pet “Anonymous” (to keep it off the grid, I guess?) and debating whether to shoot it with love or burn it with love to keep other animals from “getting him” doesn’t make you laugh, perhaps this aside from the end of the report will. Ericcson was so mad that after he shot the snake, he turned the gun ON HIS NASCAR MEMORABILIA CABINET. Because America!

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