The Fast and the Injurious

Finally, there’s a place to wear your new Budweiser T-shirt now that the KISS Country Chili Cookoff is over. Come Saturday, the NASCAR-owned Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, Grand Prix of Miami, will zip into the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Now, if that’s not news that makes you want to jump up, spit out your chew, shoot a squirrel, and start hollering, we don’t know what is. What if we told you that Dempsey Racing — fronted by Grey’s Anatomy hunk Patrick Dempsey — will race in the GT class and will face a stiff, two-hour-and-45-minute battle between man and machine on a demanding two-and-three-tenths-mile oval? Or that this will occur as Daytona Prototypes race for position as the two classes compete on the track simultaneously? Still not hyped yet? Consider that tickets cost $25, which gets you exclusive paddock access. That means you can walk Pit Road, take pictures of the drivers and their cars minutes before starting-command, and gawk at the races from the grandstands on the front stretch or any of the infield bleachers along the road course. The track opens at 8 a.m., and the race starts at noon.

Sat., March 5, noon, 2011