NASCAR, a New Fan's Story, Part One

As NASCAR season is underway, SixSeeds boardmember David French writes about how he became a fan five years ago.

"Come to Talladega for the weekend,” said my friend.  “We'll stay in an RV, and you can have the tickets for free."
 
Though I grew up in Tennessee and Kentucky (where NASCAR news surrounds and clings to you like the summer humidity) I’d never really called myself a fan.  However, everyone always said the difference between a NASCAR fan and and a non-NASCAR fan is whether one has gone to race or not.  In other words, I had to go.

Talladega is about four hours southwest of Nashville, in heart of red clay country in Alabama.  About an hour's drive from Birmingham, the huge track (with a 2.66 mile oval) sits in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hundreds of acres of open fields.  The grandstands seat about 145,000 spectators, with thousands more in the infield and other areas.
 
As we exited Interstate 20 and neared the track, I saw hundreds . . . no, thousands . . . of acres of RV's, campers, tents, truck, and cars.  The open fields around the speedway every race weekend are transformed into vast campgrounds. The scale can't be captured by pictures, and it cannot be adequately described in words.  It simply has to be experienced.  Most of the RVs and campers, and even some of the tents had tall flagpoles with multiple flags fluttering in the wind.  Most flew the American flag (always on top, of course), the rest of the flags varied wildly.  Multi-colored flags honoring individual drivers, flags of SEC schools, Marine Corps and Army flags, and thousands upon thousands of variations of the Confederate flag blew in the wind.  The visual effect was striking . . . it was almost as if Lee's vast Army of Northern Virginia was camped in front of me.
 
It was all utterly haphazard, as NASCAR is a libertarian's paradise.  The "free fields" had no supervision at all.  People put tents and RVs wherever they wanted to, with only the occasional port-o-pot giving any indication of an outside influence.  The "pay fields" were distinguished by gas and electricity hook-ups and usually some sort of quasi-official looking guy on a four-wheeler at the entrance.  He would guide you to your reserved plot of ground, then motor back to drink copious amounts of Miller Lite.
 
We parked our Yukon and immediately started walking to the track to catch the Busch race.  For the uninitiated, NASCAR has three primary race circuits, the Craftsman Truck Series (racing modified pickup trucks), the Busch Series (kind of like AAA ball except that most of the major stars race in it as well . . . kinda like going to a Pawtucket game and seeing Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz take the field with some of the prospects), and the big one -- the Nextel Cup (formerly known as the Winston Cup).  We had plans to see the Busch race on Saturday then the Nextel Cup race on Sunday.
 
And it’s not like going to the movies or a ballgame, where you have to buy a $4 bottle of water and a $5 Coca-Cola. NASCAR fans can bring their own drinks and food (and some fans had bags full of beer slung over their shoulders).  Had we had radios with the correct frequencies, we could hear all the conversations between drivers, the pit crew, and the crew chiefs.  (Imagine going to an NFL game and hearing the coaches talk to each other, the quarterback talk to the coaches, and the quarterback talk in the huddle and during a play).  Our general admission seats were directly by the track, and we could literally walk up the chain link fence separating the fans from the track area.  At our closest, we were no more than 10 yards from the track.
 
Walking in, I had a feeling not unlike the first time I set foot in a baseball park . . . wide-eyed wonder.  The track was huge and more than 100,000 people surrounded it in the stands.  When I walked in, the cars had just gone by the grandstand and were speeding to the far side of the track.  Even as they moved away, the noise was incredible.  A very deep and loud roar.  By the time we hit our seats, the cars were on the far side of the track, about a mile away.  As they rounded the corner and headed towards us, my friend leaned over and said, "you won't believe this."
 
He was right.
 
The instant the cars started to make the turn to go on the straightaway, the sound immediately changed.  The loud roar went almost silent, and you heard a wooshing sound as if all the air were being sucked towards the cars (that wasn't happening, but that's what it sounded like).  Then, within about five seconds, the cars blew by in a literally terrifying blast of sound and speed.  They were moving about 185 miles per hour, within inches of each other (some literally touching, in a move known as "bump drafting").  Half a second after they passed, a blast of hot air followed, and what felt like tiny grains of sand hit my face and got in my mouth.  "That's brake dust and rubber from the tires," explained my friend.  About 51 seconds later, we experienced the same wooshing noise, the same terrifying blast of speed and sound, and the same dust-filled wind.
 
Ten minutes after we arrived, one of the cars tried to nose into line, was bumped on the back left, and literally went airborne.  Car accidents are scary enough, but watching an accident occur at almost 200 miles per hour about 100 yards away was a combination of petrifying and fascinating.  The car rolled and slid upside down across the start/finish line.  The driver emerged (Tony Stewart) emerged a few minutes later, unhurt.  The race was thrilling, with sometimes three and four lead changes in each lap, and it came down to the wire, with a botched pass attempt handing a victory to the crowd favorite.  (As a side note, everyone screams and yells at NASCAR races, but you can't hear the crowd.  You know a sport is loud when it drowns out the sound of more than 100,000 people yelling at the top of their lungs).

And that’s how this southern boy began to understand NASCAR. It’s like taking all the good and bad elements of the South, packing them into one confined geographic area, and then pumping them full of steroids.


Stay tuned for Part Two of this NASCAR series on SixSeeds, which discusses David going to the RV Park – and truly experiencing the “Libertarian’s Paradise” in all of its glory!