died. here's what we know. this is according to the cleveland plain viewer, an area newspaper. the alleged gunman is a young man by the name of t.j. lane, believed to be a teenager. this newspaper, along with cnn, has spoken to multiple eyewitnesses, in fact, one of those one of the shooting victims. this appears to be a suspect being taken with law enforcement in handcuffs. the shooting took place at chardon high school a little before 8:00 this morning. teachers say, and students we spoke with, that a teacher chased the suspect out of the building. he was ultimately taken into custody in cuffs. ted, i know it's a very tough day for people there. tell me what you know at this point in time. >> reporter: well, brooke, there are two sides to the story, obviously. the one side is the

investigation into what could have led to this, and that's ongoing, as you can see behind me at the high school here. local sheriff's department leading this investigation, but they're getting help from the fbi and the atf. in fact, they have recovered the firearm that they believe was used, and they have given that to the atf to do some ballistics work on it. the other side of the story is clearly the absolute despair and shock that the people here are going through, and especially the family of a young man that has now been confirmed to be a fatality. there are, you know, really no words to explain the shock that this family must be going through. they actually did release a statement in the last few hours saying, we are shocked by this senseless tragedy. danny was a bright young boy who had a bright future ahead of him. the family is torn by the loss. this is from the family of daniel parmentor, the sole fatal

victim at this point. as for the school itself, brooke, it is in lockdown. the students have been long told to leave the school. they at first were staged at a nearby elementary and middle school here. their parents came and picked them up. but the stories you're hearing, and you can only imagine the fear that not only the kids went through during this but the parents, trying to find informati information. and then for these families either dealing with an injured child, or in the one case, a dead child. it's just a horrible, horrible, senseless tragedy. >> i can't imagine. we sought images of parents this morning waiting outside the school hoping those injured were not their sons and daughters. speaking of those injured, ted, we know that four are in hospitals. do you have any kind of update as far as conditions go? >> the latest update we had was that there was -- there are two separate hospitals. two of the injured are in cleveland and the other two are at a local hospital about 30

miles east of cleveland here. in the last updates we got were basically three serious and one in stable condition, but we are expecting a news conference at the top of the hour locally here, and at that point we should get an update on the condition of the injured and an update on this alleged shooter and possibly even a motive. we'll watch to see what they say at the top of the hour, but we are expecting to get more information. >> and hopefully an update on this teacher who perhaps sort of saved the day and was able to chase the suspected gunman out of the high school. ted rowlands, thanks for that. we'll be looking for that news conference at the top of the hour. meantime, a high school freshman at that school, danny combhartz was sitting ten feet from the shooter. i asked him to give us a description. >> my friends and i were walking together, just having a good time, and we just heard a pop. it was pretty loud and pretty

noticeable. and just looked up, and i looked straight ahead and i saw a g gun pointing at a group of four guys sitting at a table, and he was about two feet away from them, and he just fired two quick shots at them. i saw one student fall, and i saw the other hiding, trying to get cover underneath the table. >> danny, when you talk about how he was -- pointed a gun at these four students at a table, can you describe how he appeared to be shooting? did he appear to be aiming, or was he randomly shooting? >> he was -- it was clearly, to me, that he was aiming right at them as he was two feet away and he was aiming right at them. he wasn't shooting around the cafeteria at all.

he was directly aiming at the four of them. >> was he saying anything when he was shooting at them? >> i'm not sure. >> you're not sure? you couldn't hear anything? >> no, i didn't -- i couldn't hear anything if he was saying anything. >> do you know if those four students were saying anything? were they pleading with him? >> i know the four of them, but they're upperclass men, we're not good friends or anything, but i know who they were, though. >> how many pops did you hear? you mentioned one pop. >> i heard one, and i looked up and saw and heard the quick two, and then after the quick two, me and my friends ran out the doors and i heard two more shots be fired behind me. >> can you describe how he appeared, what he was wearing, the look in his eye?

>> i didn't know anything he was wearing. i just looked right at the gun and just had fear inside of me and i was really scared of what was going to happen, so i didn't look at his face, i just looked at the gun. and i ran. >> i understand, danny, a teacher chased him out of the building. what can you tell me about that? did you see that at all? >> the teacher was mr. hall. he's like the study hall teacher, and he's a very brave man. he broke up a fight earlier this year, so he's known to do some good things like that, and i guess he chased them out of the building and saved a lot of other students' lives, probably. >> danny combhartz, thank you for calling in. he was 15 years of age and i asked him at the end of the interview how he was and he

basically said in shock. so of course our hearts are with people in that community today. we're not going to go too far from that story but i do want to talk about this. police are praising the school for the preparedness in the shooting. coming up, we're going to walk through the training that the school likely went through. that's next. [ laura ] maine is known for its lighthouses, rocky shore, and most importantly, its lobster. it's the tastiest, the sweetest, the freshest. nobody can ever get enough. [ male announcer ] it's lobsterfest at red lobster, the one time of year you can savor 12 exciting lobster entrees like lobster lover's dream or new maine lobster and shrimp trio. [ laura ] hot, right out of the shell. i love lobster. i'm laura mclennan from spruce head, maine, and i sea food differently.

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lane. >> right. >> the fbi, you say, is at his house right now. why? >> local law enforcement fbi, most likely a violent task force. it's a task force of different agencies together. they are there processing the house. if i'm an investigatinvestigato to go there and find out, are there any writings? did he maybe twitter or text somebody that somebody would have seen? was there anything in his room that looks like he was planning this for some time, did this happen just on the spur of the moment? where did the gun come from? was it his gun, a relative's, his parents? >> i know they did recover outside a handgun, and federal agencies will be tracing that gun, as you mentioned. >> right. >> when you hear, though, the silver lining, if we can call it that, it appears any kind of training that this school went through, and i heard one student say countless times, it worked.

>> it worked, and the response worked by both law enforcement, fire department, ems, the school system and their notification system, brooke. i tell you what, these notification systems, if you're a school system and you don't have some kind of notification system to let the parents know in a timely fashion and with accurate information what's going on, you need to get one because they usualliy send it a a text, an e-mail and a voice message, all three modes. apparently it worked with this particular incident. we heard parents say they found out quickly about it and it gives instructions to the parents about what to do, what not to do and what's going on with updates. >> so we know there is a news conference just about 50 minutes from now, top of the hour. i presume perhaps they're going to identify a number of other people involved. as far as this suspected gunman goes, no charges yet. >> no, no charges. he's a juvenile, most likely. does that mean he's going to be handled any differently? possibly.

there's different ways you deal with a juvenile suspect, but now that there is a death involved, now that it is a homicide scene, that could change things a little bit, especially on the investigator's side. >> anything jump out at you from watching this all day? >> as a former firefighter and a former police officer, it went smooth, from what i saw. if you go back to 1999 and look at columbine, we have learned so much both on the public safety side, on the education side. we in the news media covering live events, we have learned, too, from that columbine incident and we continue to learn. so sdoes the law enforcement, they continue to learn with someone at the school. this turned out to be a student at the school. >> let's go back to processing the home. they've also been going through the neighborhood. why? >> we do a neighborhood canvass. did someone see him earlier in the day?

did they see him perhaps with someone else? what was he doing? did he drive there? did he walk there? is there other people possibly involved in this? they were saying early on they thought it was one gunman, but did anybody know about this beforehand that could have prevented it? >> thanks, mike. >> sure, brooke. food poisoning in a nato air base. the taliban taking credit. we'll hear live from kabul after this quick break. this is delicious okay...

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the taliban says it did indeed poison the food in a nato base. also vladmir putin the apparent target of an assassination plot. and ben and jerry's says, i'm sorry. and this whole thing involves jeremy lin. time to play reporter roulette.

i want to begin with cnn foreign affairs correspondent lisa lavitt at the foreign department for us. the obama administration in a diplomatic fix with the chaos rampant in afghanistan. elise? >> reporter: basically, this apology that president obama offered to president karzai after that accidental burning of the korans have really been fueling a lot of criticism from the republican candidates and also afghan saying this is giving the taliban an excuse to go against us. you see all the rage from afghanistan, the killing of the servicemen, and some people argue now that u.s. has accepted responsibility, this puts a target on our heads. >> is there anything, though, to this whole argument that president obama may have made this work by issuing a written apology over the koran burning straight to the president,

karzai? >> reporter: they say no. i traveled with hillary clinton this week and she told me, listen, the political candidates are using this unfortunate incident. president obama did, she says, what anybody would do, and in the bush administration, when inadvertent acts happened, they apologized because they don't want to see the burning of a holy book and wanted the afghan people to know that this is not something that reflects u.s. morals and values. but brooke, it's a much larger issue with what's going to happen with the u.s. skpch and afghanistan says as it starts to pull out all the troops, the next year and a half is really critical for the u.s. and afghanistan to train police, and that's really going to be a problem now. and more importantly, the government of karzai, is he a partner? he's been speaking a very tough line in the united states, even in the face of the apology, and

the question is, can the u.s. rely on him now as we reach toward withdrawal? >> a lot of questions, elise labott. next, phil black live in moscow. attempted assassination of vladmir putin. what happened? >> reporter: everything we know was give bin a russian television network. what we do know was there was an explosion in an apartment about two months ago. one person was killed, one was injured, a third person was injured and tracked down about a month later. this newspaper claims that the two surviving suspects from that blast have confessed to this plot in which they were planning to come to moscow to attack what they describe as economic targets and then the ultimate goal was an assassination attempt on prime minister and current presidential candidate

vladmir putin, attacking his motorcade using some sort of military mine. critics and opponents say all of this seems suspicious in its timing given that the authorities have clearly known about this for more than a month or so, and now it is only being revealed on a state-run channel a week out. less than a week, in fact, from the presidential poll. they say it's a clear attempt to try to boost his popularity. >> the latest opinion polls say he could win 60% of the vote. he only needs to get more than 50% to ensure he wins in the first round and doesn't have to come back for a second round vote. that's something he wants to do desperately to ensure that he has a strong democratic mandate

to continue leading the country, especially because of those huge street protests, that big opposition movement that we've seen gathering against him in recent months, brooke. >> phil black in moscow, thank you. next, ben and jerry's, guilty of temporary linsanity? i heard about this and i thought, what? what did they do? >> reporter: it comes from the category of duh. makes you wonder what they were thinking, right? what happened was the ben and jerry's ice cream store located in harvard in boston made a flavor called linsanity. of course he's an asian american. here's the problem. ben & jerry's flavor originally was made with frozen yogurt, honey swells and pieces of fortune cookies. yeah, that's the problem. this limited flavor sold out on saturday, but after initial reports of backlash, it went

ahead and replaced those fortune cookies with waffle cookies and will be making that flavor no more. but they came out with this statement, we offer our heartfelt apology. if anyone is offend, we apologize. we're proud and honored to have jeremy lin hail from one of our fine, local universities and we are huge sports fans. we were swept up in the nationwide linsanity momentum. >> all right. secondly, as i'm talking to you, i'm told the dow -- let's plug in the numbers to see where they are as we're just about 40 minutes away from the closing bell. here we are. there we go. three points over. so once again, hallelujah. >> yes, continues flirting with that 13,000 level. we're talking about the dow. we've got 40 minutes to go. anything could happen, but yes, everybody has been watching if the dow will close at 13,000.

hey, it just may make it today. one thing that is giving investors incentive to buy into the market today, pending home sales are at a two-year high. you can thank lower mortgage rates, lower housing prices. let's see if it's enough to push the dow to 13,000 or above today. brooke? >> alison kosik, thank you. we'll see how it ends about 40 minutes from now. coming up next, we just wanted to share something with you i had never seen before. a mother writes her son's obituary after he kills himself during a night of college drinking, but she gets very, very candid talking about his weaknesses and his strengths. she is going to join me next. we're going to ask her why she did this, next. i've been eating progresso and now my favorite old jeans...fit. okay is there a woman i can talk to? [ male announcer ] progresso. 40 soups 100 calories or less.

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two fridays ago, a 21-year-old college student from new york killed himself. most families tend to keep this kind of tragedy private, but spencer supell's mother went public, writing her own son's obituary in a journal. she writes not only his strengths but also reflects on his weaknesses that perhaps led him to take his own life. i want to quote part of this here. she says, that night, spencer got very, very drunk. binge drinking at college has been a regular thing since freshman year. why didn't he get the proper help? thursday night was one of those binge nights at the frat. he had a fight with his best friend. he said he was going to kill

himself. he locked his door and did it. he did not leave a note. he did not look for help. alcohol brought down those pre-fabricated walls, and all that was left was thoughtless pain. and celia seupel joins me from new york. of course, celia, my heartfelt condolences to you. i appreciate you being here. it just struck me. as i read this obituary, i had never read anything so personal from a mother to her young son. why did you do it? >> there are a couple of reasons. the first is because i am a writer. i've been a writer all my life. i am a poet and a journalist, and for me, writing is a natural way to express my feelings. but more importantly than that, after i found out this happened, i would wake up very early in the morning, as is natural, 3:00 in the morning. i'm still doing that, and think a lot about what happened and

why did this happen, and what is it that did happen? and i felt i came to an understanding of what had happened, and i wanted to talk to people about that, because i feel it's so important for people to understand, especially when there is statistics out there like suicide is the third leading cause of death among people in this age group, 15 to 24. and i felt like i had to express what's going on, that this is an opportunity to explain to people what's going on. and that's why i did it. >> did you find yourself writing this obituary in the middle of the night? >> yes. i did that, yes. >> i read, as you detailed, spencer wanted to be a doctor. he had an internship lined up for this summer. he was an athlete. yet it seems early on that spencer felt he was not good enough. why? >> i feel this happened truly

because he was so sensitive. he was an extremely sensitive child, physically as well as emotionally, and when he went into that school environment, it got very rough, as it does for all kids when they are adolescents and they go into middle school and junior high school, it becomes very rough, very competitive, very critical and lots of people playing tricks, making fun of each other, and i think that he was incredibly hurt by things, and he began to build a very tough shell of what it was to be a man, you know, and this is what i have to do, and he was very smart and very goal oriented, and he built this shell of confidence that didn't go all the way down to the bottom. it didn't really feel that he

was loved or he was good enough, and that would break down every once in a while. what i was going to say is normally he would bounce back very quickly. he reached out for help, he had a lot of support growing up, but the alcohol is what -- >> that's what i wanted to ask you about, the alcohol. >> that really slays me because first of all, he knew he shouldn't be drinking like that. and i feel that especially when people -- first of all, this is such a typical college sport, even high school sport, the binge drinking and the drinking games, and they really think this is fun and a way to have fun. they don't really understand how dangerous it is. >> had you had that conversation with him, celia, at all? were you aware that he was a binge drinker.

>> yes. >> were you surprised to find out he took his life that night? >> i was deeply shocked and surprised that he had taken his life because he did not express suicidal feelings to me or to many other people. he did say that night before he went to his room that he was just going to go kill himself. that's another message i want to give to young people. >> go ahead. >> is that if you hear someone say that, you must stay with them. you can't leave them alone until you get some kind of adult help for that person. and i don't have any -- i've talked to the boys in the fraternity who, of course, feel terrib terrible, and it's not their fault. they don't know that. they actually went back to check on him. but we don't have enough training for young people how to respond to these situations. >> it was just so heartfelt, and

this is ultimately my final question. you said remember the meaning of the tragedy. the meaning of the tragedy is what to you? >> the meaning of the tragedy is very complex because it has to do with our -- with everything i expressed in that article. it has to do with our entire social scene that young people are growing up feeling like they have to be cool and they have to be perfect, they have to be on top, and they don't feel good enough about themselves just the way they are. i feel like it's an aspect of schools and society being so huge that people get lost in that environment, and they also have a pecking order that's destructive. i feel the meaning of the tragedy is that someone who appears confident, as my son did, may not really feel that

confident. and most important, that we have to approach each other with love and tolerance and communicate that to each other and help each other. and that too often in this world, that's just not happening. >> we have a lot of parents watching right now, and i hope they're listening closely. again, we're sorry about spencer. thank you for writing what you did and coming on the show. thank you. >> i also would like to say, if i can, we started a web site for spencer, spencerseupel.com. >> we'll put that out there. coming up, he's up in the race for the white house in arizona and michigan. we're going to hear why she went on a hot air balloon ride, next.

man: 1939 -- my parents ran across an ad for a hot dog cart. my mother said, "well, maybe we ought to buy this hot dog cart and set it up someplace." so my parents went to bank of america. they met with the branch manager and they said, "look, we've got this little hot dog cart, and it's on a really good corner. let's see if we can buy the property." and the branch manager said, "all right, i will take a chance with the two of you." and we've been loyal to bank of america for the last 71 years.

now to the race to the gop presidential nomination. of course, primaries tomorrow in both arizona and michigan. voters there head to the polls, as we mentioned, tomorrow. but here's something i know everybody is talking about wherever you live. how much of a political price will candidates pay for high gas prices? saw zan m suzanne malveaux talked to some business owners in phoenix. take a look. >> all right. away we go. welcome to my office. >> reporter: it's beautiful. >> got the best view in town. >> reporter: the view, phoenix, arizona. small business owner kevin flanagan. how long have you been doing this? >> i've been flying hot air balloons for 28 years now. i've been the luckiest guy around. >> reporter: but kevin's luck is running out. >> the propane makes it fly, and it seems whenever the gas prices go up, the propane prices shoot

up as well. a few years ago we were at about $1.85 a gallon and now it's 2.99 there are a gallon, just kind of overnight. >> reporter: how does that affect your profits? >> it takes any profit away. i would say most operators are at break even. >> reporter: we decided to come here at the desert rv cam. people travel here with their trailers, their rvs. these are the people really impacted by the rising price of gas. this is home for now, right? >> this is our home away from home. >> reporter: it's fantastic. it's huge. it's really big. what does it cost to fill the tank? >> it's a 100-gallon tank, and it will cost $400 to fill the tank at $4 a gallon. >> reporter: for dean, that means cutting back on family vacations, but the expense is still worth it.

>> living in this enclosed space with a five and an eight-year-old, sometimes it will drive you crazy, but it's great because you've got all you ever need here and that family time is a close-knit time. you can't beat that part. >> reporter: at the local art fair, we met chefs pam and dean aer. they say lower gas prices mean more sale less sales. >> it will transfer to my product price and that means probably less sales as well. >> and a claim by the republican candidates that they'll bring gas prices down, no one here i was talking to was buying it. >> i don't think the republican candidates have a good idea to

bring this back? >> you know, i don't know. i'm confused by politics because everybody says how they're going to turn it around, and the bottom result sat the pump. >> nice offices, malveaux, 1,000 feet in the air. i like that. >> i couldn't pass it up. >> nice gig. i see why you're doing arizona. let me ask you, high gas prices, look, that's just a manifestation in the fear in the market, and i'm sure a lot of people you talk to realize that. it's not like there's really a silver bullet. but a lot of people just realize it's the economy, right? they want a candidate who can really fix it. >> of course, they want the economy to turn around, but it was really interesting, brooke, the folks i talked to. they really felt it was the price of doing business, especially those small business owners, kevin, who was in his hot air balloon, that couple down below selling their special sauces. it's become much more important just to do their job. that's why they talk about gas

prices, being able to transport those balloons from one place to another, or being able to ride in their rv and sell their sauces from one state to another. it really is about the gas prices and how much it cost, and that's really what people see impacts the housing, impacts their own ability to make money as a small business or to do their job or to stay in their homes. and brooke, it was really fascinating, because i talked to all these folks and they don't think any of the republican candidates can do the job. they're not excited about obama, either, because they're republicans. but they're not happy with the candidates they're actually seeing here. they want somebody they believe who can actually bring down the price of gas, because that's a real tangible way in their lives they can make a difference. brooke? >> so they don't like anyone, i'm hearing. none of the above. >> reporter: they don't see the solutions coming from the politicians, they really don't. >> great reporting, saw zoon malveaux. thank you very much. we'll see you back there tomorrow. in the meantime, a

firefighter disappeared on a trip to maine. they have now named some persons of interest in his disappearance. the man's stepfather joins me live, next.

oy florida father makes a living fighting fires, but now his family is frightened because he may need to be the one being rescued. he's missing after a trip to maine. the father of two told his wife tanya he was going there to help a friend. police then found his car in this parking lot in bangor, and just this afternoon tanya, the wife, spoke to reporters about the last conversation she had with her husband. >> he called me to tell me that

he was fine. we only spoke for a minute because the reception was really bad. and he told me that he loved me and that to hug and kiss the kids and then he told me that he would call me later. and i never -- he told me he loved me, and i didn't hear from him. >> tanya says she has no idea who this couple is. this is daniel porter and his girlfriend cheyenne nowak also of maine. police believe they were the last to have contact with perdomo and now they're suspe suspecting foul play here. but the loved ones of perdomo are hoping for the best. they searched the woods, and now we'll talk to carlos.

carlos, why maine? did he explain why he went to maine? >> we don't know why he was there. we know he had friends in different areas. he did communicate with different friends in different areas, but we have no idea about this certain place that he went. >> so he had never mentioned going to bangor before, he's never mentioned friends in bangor? >> we know that he had some friends, especially tanya, the wife, which is with him, so she would know more about the situation than we have, but we didn't know very much about the friends that he had there. we know he has different friends in different areas. >> i see. he has two young children, 10 and 3 years of age. is he the kind of guy to up and leave his family? did anything happen to cause him to leave? >> no. jerry, i would say, is the perfect father. he is 100% for his children, and

we don't believe that he intentionally would do anything to abandon his family in any way. >> did you notice anything different about him lately behaviorwise, anything odd? >> no. jerry has always been the perfect son, perfect husband, perfect father. the best to his community and serving. >> forgive me for interrupting, i do want to ask what this couple that were last seen with him, do you know of them? because this is the couple police suspect foul play somehow with someone. >> we did not know them. >> he had never mentioned them before. >> no. no. >> and so bottom line, as you sit, you have one family member in maine helping with this search. you sit, wait and what, carlos? >> again, would you please give

me that question? >> just the final question. as you're sitting and waiting, what are you thinking day to day here? >> we are thinking and hoping for the best and praying about this situation. we have faith that the lord will reveal the situation to us and help us to get ahead of this tragedy. >> carlos diaz, we hope jerry comes home safe and sound. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> coming up next, a special guest putting on a jacket right now joining me live off a trip to orlando where he shmoozed with the biggest stars. we'll tell you about the song you sang as you came to say hello to me today in just a moment. hello. ( whirring and crackling sounds )

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from left to right... and right to left. ♪ the cadillac cts. ♪ we don't just make luxury cars. we make cadillacs. sitting next to me one of my favorite people here at cnn. welcome back to you. if people were watching you and i talking on friday, we talked about how you were -- excuse me, thursday, you took a day off.

>> correct. >> you know -- >> we have some pictures to accompany all of your various tweets. so let's pull up, i think this might be the steve nash picture? >> yes. it was a great thrill to see him. he's a great -- he's a great ball player but he's also a terrific guy. he has 800,000 followers on twitter. he's very active on twitter. >> i saw that. >> he's an nba all-star. a real, nba all-star. >> he was a legend? >> that was a brunch with all the old-timers. that was great but i went to the rookie sophomore game friday night and i was courtside. were you watching? >> friday night? >> no. >> you know who was there? >> jeremy lin. >> did you say hello? >> you said, hi, i'm wolf blitzer. >> he looked at me like -- >> just another one of those. >> he's been under a lot of pressure. he's a great future ahead of

him. >> who else do we have? do we have the pit bull picture? as you came over to say hello to my team today you were singing the pit bull song. >> i know you love pit bull. this was at the house of blues in orlando. tnt had a party saturday night, a three-point shootout and he was amazing. have you ever seen him in concert? >> no. did you meet him? >> i didn't meet him but i watched him. >> good? >> he did the halftime entertainment at the all-star game last night as well but he was better at the house of blues because that was a terrific venue for -- here's your song, should we pause? let's hear it. >> i like that. one, two, three, four. >> so let's talk politics. earlier -- really, that's why you're here and we're doing the primaries tomorrow night. what happens if mitt romney

doesn't win michigan? >> that's a huge setback. if santorum gets him where he was born. his father was governor and he was raised there, it would be a huge setback. >> we thought it was upsetting when he lost colorado. >> you're right. if he loses michigan, the most recent polls show there's a little bit of momentum going for romney now. santorum, apparently, suffered at the last cnn debate and didn't necessarily do great. we'll see what happens. the voters could surprise all of us. that's why we love doing politics. we don't know what the end result will be. i'm looking forward to it. a week from tomorrow, super tuesday. >> huge. >> i'll be here. you should be at the nba all-star game next year. >> where did i go with you in. >> the b.e.t. soul train awards. next, we're tracking weather.

sler 200. no one would know if we didn't. but we would have. and for us, the things you do when no one is looking are the things that define you. ♪

mother nature apparently not so much awe fan of nascar because for the second day in a row, look at this. heavy rains delay to be start of the daytona 500. you know, our weatherman, chad myers, you're nascar extraordinary. you used to be a pit reporter. let's preface this with i talked to wolf about his weekend. >> i had a better weekend than he did.

>> cub scouts? >> 60 cub scouts and their father on the uss yorktown sleeping in the old bunks of the 1943 aircraft carrier. >> so you're coming down with something? >> with 47 of those 50 kids, coughing and sneezing and everything else, it appears that one little bunk bed was -- >> people were wondering as you're speaking. >> i won't be here tomorrow. >> great. stay over there. meantime, we'll talk daytona 500. this is a huge deal. what is this, the 54th year of running it? >> yes. >> ever been rain delayed. >> you have 150,000 to watch that race yesterday from so many states, and they have to work today. they had to leave and their tickets are worthless, we can't give them away now, they're done. they'll try to start it tonight but i've had radar up and it doesn't look good for tonight. >> for 7:00 tonight? so what do they do? >> they have the jet dryers going and the thunderstorms have moved offshore but there's still more action from gainesville

toward daytona now and they get the track dry and then it rains again. those are the jet dryers. >> i was going to ask you. how does that work? they're literally drying the track? >> they need about 1500 of those things and they have three or four, driving around the track and the heat from the engine, blows on the track and warms the asphalt and dries it. >> how do they fill the seats? is it even possible they call it off? >> if they have to call it off because they can't run it tomorrow, it will be easter sunday instead but that won't happen. tomorrow is going to be plenty dry. they may got it in tonight. they have to run 100 laps. then it's official. they'll try to do it tonight. they're excited that this is monday night primetime football show for them. this is like "welcome to the nfl" for the daytona. >> how do they fill the track?

>> they won't. >> it will be empty? >> yes. >> that's kind of anti-climactic. >> people are at home watching it on tv. we'll sell more ad dollars. >> you knew about that. >> it's fantastic. >> what's it like in. >> it's big. the cars when they go by you, there think they go and they're gone for like a minute. they're so tiny you can't see them and then they come back. it's better to watch a big track like that on tv. for the small tracks, like bristol, those small tracks, live. there, in person. big tracks, watch them on tv. >> we'll see if they run tonight or not. chad myers, you're calling that they are not. feel better, by the way. i won't see you tomorrow. before we go, the sister ship of the doomed costa concordia cruise line running into trouble. the aallegra. they say a fire broke o