You know it's just not your year when your car is just sitting a couple hours before the race, not doing anything but looking pretty, and an errant skydiver's weight for his flag hits the door and send your team scrambling to repair it.
That's the fate that has befallen Sprint Cup superstar Kevin Harvick and his No. 29 Richard Childress Racing team at the Texas Motor Speedway. Their Chevy Impala, sponsored this week by Atlanta-based Rheem, sustained significant damage to the driver's side door when a parachutist was diving into the speedway and his sandbag hit Harvick's car.
The Gil Martin-led pit crew got the car repaired and have returned it to the grid. Because the team never even opened the hood, only working to repair the door, NASCAR did not make the team go back through pre-race inspection.
The whole situation is probably a reality check of sorts for Harvick. He won last night's Nationwide Series 300-miler handily, but 2012 as a whole has been a comedy of errors in a professional sense for the Bakersfield native. From a personal sense, 2012 will always be special as Harvick and wife Delana welcomed their first son, Keelan Paul, in July. One must wonder if this incident will give the Harvicks a new term to use during diaper duty.