W elcome to the latest Happy Hour mailbag! You know how these work: You write us w ith your best rant/ joke/one-liner at happyhournascar@yahoogroups.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee , we respond to your messages, everyone goes away with a smile on their face. So. Going to see "The Hunger Games" this weekend? All the kids are. You know the plot, right? Twenty-four kids are dumped in the wilderness and the last one left alive wins. Which, of course, brings up the question of NASCAR Hunger Games. I'll be doing a post on this later this week, but I'd like your thoughts: which driver do you think would best survive a NASCAR Hunger Games? Email your thoughts pronto. Until then, enjoy a sampling of the bile and outrage that arrived in the wake of the overturning of the penalties against the 48 team: Let's see: powerful boss who has been known to engage in shady practices to get his own way, a right-hand man willing to do whatever he has to so the boss can obtain his goals, and a naive young driver drawn to the dark side when the going gets tough. Sounds like a good movie plot. Oh wait, they made it already; it was called "The Godfather"! Too bad Marlon Brando died, or he would be great playing Rick Hendrick in the NASCAR version! — Joyce Keith Yeah, the highly controversial appeal decision overturning penalties against Chad Knaus and the rest of the 48 team dominated our letter column inbox this week. We're still processing all this, but the early sentiment (and the early tenor of the emails we've received) is that this does absolutely nothing to convince people of the 48 team's innocence ... even if, in fact, they are. ESPN.com's Bill Simmons has pretty much killed the usage of "The Godfather" in any sports context, but I have to say, that's a solid comparison right there. And who's Fredo, the poor brother who tries so hard to impress his dad but can't win, no matter what? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.
