Fast Cars And Superstars

Last year I read that William Shatner was participating in NASCAR racing, and it didn't surprise me.
For years he's been interested in pushing the envelope. He used to do motorcycle racing, off-road motorcycling, rock climbing, and paragliding.
The only thing was, the article that I read didn't give any details about where he was racing or what it was for.

Now I know! "Fast Cars And Superstars" aired last night @ 8pm Eastern on ABC. What a surprise! Racing along with him were supermodel Gabrielle Reese and NFL Coach Bill Cowher. Sponsored by the Gillette Young Guns, this was sort of a test to see if one of the Young Guns had enough training in him to be able to teach anyone how to drive NASCAR. Kindah cool.

Gabrielle did just fine, The Coach also did very well, but Bill Shatner proved that age and hearing sometimes don't make for a good NASCAR driver. He was the only one of all of them that had ever been in a manual transmission car; he'd already owned several that required shifting. But when it came down to keeping off the inside white line of the track, Bill couldn't seem to stop from drifting onto it.

First time 'round, he traced the white line. He was given a warning by his lead (timing) driver, and he did it again - going over the white line by two feet.
On his third time around the track, he hit and went over the line again. There was some serious judge-talk, and by the time The Shat pulled himself out of the car, they were already marching up to him.

"What white line?!" joked Shatner, as he explained to The Coach why he had been disqualified.
"Honestly, I couldn't see the white line...was there one?"
Even Coach groaned and shook his head.
The only explanation was that Bill didn't see the white line, didn't feel like paying attention to it, didn't know it was a safety hazard to go below it, and didn't hear his timing driver when he radioed to warn him.

So oh, well. Shat's out. Typical. I'll bet his insurance company made him do it. They would have dropped him if he really raced, instead of just qualifying. :)