Bless Jay Busbee of FROM THE MARBLES for reminding us that a “reality” series called “NASCAR Wives” will hit the airwaves on TLC on January 24th. (Remember when TLC meant “The Learning Channel” and not “We’ll Do Anything for Quick Cash”?  Heck, the most recent name doesn’t even match the acronym. It’s like they’re not even trying.)

(If you can’t even get Jeff Gordon’s wife, what’s the point?)

Participants will include Kevin Harvick’s wife, Jeremy Mayfield’s wife, Mike Skinner’s wife, and Junior’s sister (who might be a wife but, c’mon, that’s a pretty tenuous connection and ruins the entire dramatic tension for us). As Busbee points out, this is totally controlled by NASCAR, so girls will not be going wild.  We expect as much action as “Bonds on Bonds”.  In fact, what’s Pedro Gomez doing these days?

Which is a shame, of course.  The madcap hit in Britain for five years was “Footballers’ Wives”, where adultery, catfights, child kidnapping, comas, and murder were just as common as dreary weather and cross-dressing comics. Imagine how well NASCAR could do with a show like that.  Heck, they have cars for weapons and car chases! Footballers don’t have th… oh, maybe they do. Still.

And it’s not like NASCAR couldn’t use a little help in these tough economic times.  Their Nationwide and Sprint teams are chasing each other ’round the cash-laden mulberry bush to merge with each other (as the kids call it these days) and there’s room for doubt that the truck series makes it to next fall.

Still, we see why NASCAR’s giving it a shot even if they’re going to limit our exposure to incest and amnesia caused by comas.  All the girls want to be WAGs; British tabloids told us so and they’re rarely wrong. You get your money for nothing and your fellow chicks for free, right?  That’s what we learned by watching The Learning Channel, so we assume it’s correct as well.