Soon will come the dark time during the yearly sports calendar. After the Super Bowl, it’s too early to care about spring training, March Madness is still over a month away, and no one can bear to watch regular season NBA games. So the staff of La Jerga would like to offer a new sport to help will the empty places of your Monday morning quarterbacking. May we present to San Miguel the great new sport sweeping the world: Cheese Racing.

This game is for everybody, as the most athletic part is throwing slices onto a BBQ grill. Here are the rules. All cheeses must still be in their plastic packaging to participate. The cheese racers whose cheese inflates first, is the winner. The cheeses on the grill must not overlap. After the first throwing of the cheese, known as the ‘cast’ among hardened fans, one repositioning of the cheese is allowed if the cheese overlap. This is known as the ‘poke’. The winning cheese is defined as one whose reaches the inflated stage first. Remember, we are using cheese still in its plastic wrapper here, cheese without the package more or less just melts. ‘Fully Inflated’ is stated in the World Cheese Racing Rule Book as having all four corners raised off the BBQ and the plastic well taut. A distinctive mark, known as the ‘stretch’, will be a telltale sign that you have a winning cheese. This state must also be maintainable, as a leak in the bag can cause pulsing up and down.

But if your cheese bag does spring a leak, it is possible for the hole to become sealed with melted cheese. This will put you back in the game, such is the excitement of cheese racing. It’s not over till the Land of Lakes lady inflates.

The world of cheese racing is deeply divided into two camps. Those supporting the theory that the cheese inflates faster with the seam-side up on the plastic packaging around the cheese, are known as the ‘Uppies’, while the seam-side down crowd are known as the ‘Downies’. While logic would dictate that seam side down will help by trapping more gases, the Uppies do have amazing success. It all depends on the cheese racer.

But the key to cheese racing is of course the cheese. After extensive and intensive cheese sessions at La Jerga headquarters we can say do not use any of that weak low fat cheese. You need fat in the cheese, so that leaves supermarket brands are out. The best for your next Cheese Racing Derby is to get a pack of Kraft (TM) cheese slices from your gringo food dealer.

So go forth, and at that next BBQ make sure to reserve those cheese slices for antics that always abound in the exciting world of cheese racing!

For Cheese Racing World Membership and merchandise, please see: www.apsmithadsl.plus.com/cheese/