THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: May 28, 2014

Some holidays can be associated with certain sports.

Christmas has been taken over by basketball, Thanksgiving with football and the Fourth of July with baseball.

This past Memorial Day, in addition to celebrating those that have served our country, fans turned their attention to auto racing, for two of the biggest events of the year.

THERE ARE plenty of things I could think of to do on a day off.

Go for a scenic drive on the Coeur d'Alene River Road.

Maybe drive to Seattle to watch a baseball or football game.

But willingly sit in a car for 500-mile race, then dash to an airplane, just to go another 600, I might be considered crazy.

For the record, I'm not the biggest auto racing fan in the world.

Actually, pretty far from it.

But there was just something about Kurt Busch and his attempt to pull off "The Double" - running in the Indianapolis 500 IndyCar race, then the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 a few hours later caught my interest.

His day started well at Indy, finishing sixth in his first IndyCar race.

With a wreck late in the race, I almost wondered if the race could actually finish in enough time for Busch to get to the airport to fly to North Carolina for that night's Coca-Cola 600.

It did.

Busch actually made it to Concord, just outside of Charlotte for Sunday's race, even finding some time for a pre-race interview on television.

The night didn't go as planned, Busch blowing out his engine with 129 laps to go to finish 41st and finish the day with 906 miles completed.

Nonetheless, his attempt was at least impressive, though considered a failure.

Tony Stewart remains the only racer to successfully complete "The Double" in 2001.

Busch was close, but just not close enough.

AFTERNOON BASEBALL has always been a favorite of mine on holidays, either on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.

Outside of Opening Day, where most teams play during the day, it is the first time that teams are often showcased on television.

Meanwhile the NBA, which is down to its final four teams in the conference finals, have continued to remain in prime time.

Granted, there are some great players still in the playoffs - Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Tim Duncan - but are they really better than those of the early 1990's like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson, who played most of their best playoff games during the afternoon? Probably not.

With most of these series, the teams get a day off in between games, whereas the others often times had to play on back-to-back days.

At this point, I don't think there's many of those players that could perform at such a high level on back-to-back days.

But I'd like to see them try.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.