I've never actually been a NASCAR fan. In fact, I'm one of those who's more apt to criticize the "sport" and question whether it's even a sport to begin with. I practically keel over whenever I hear Darrell Waltrip say "boogity boogity boogity."
But for Memorial Day weekend I headed to the Coca-Cola 600 race at Lowe's Motor Speedway just north of Charlotte, N.C., which is the longest race in the Nextel Cup Series and also has the distinction of being the longest auto race on an oval track in the world. It was baptism by fire, and it was certainly hot enough that day to feel like it.
My rationale for going was two-fold: I wanted to actually watch a race first-hand rather than continue ragging on NASCAR, and I knew the people-watching opportunities would be primo. Thanks to what has been dubbed a "different" race by fans, along with a weekend of camping near the track, I've come back with a few stories to tell, and here are some of them:
The Race
I found it appropriate that for my first race Casey Mears, a driver who had never won before, pulled it off. But I can't for the life of me tell you what his car looked like. We sat near the top at Turn 2 and as fast as the cars traveled, the only one I could distinctly see circling the track was Tony Stewart's orange Home Depot Chevy. I was told that for premiere races like Charlotte's, the color designs on the car are sometimes altered. Bobby Labonte's was multiculored and nearly impossible for me to follow.
The race itself was undoubtedly better in person than on TV for one simple reason: if you knew what you were looking for, you could conceivably see individual cars lap the track rather than be forced to watch different angles of different cars driven by different people via televised coverage. I found that alone provided a sense that something was actually being accomplished rather than random, high-speed driving.
Of course, like watching figure skating for the falls, the real reason to watch NASCAR races is for the wrecks, and this race didn't disappoint. Thank you Jeff Gordon and company. Even though they happened at areas of the track that were further away than where we were sitting, they were still fun to watch.
One friend of mine brought headsets in order to listen to the drivers communicate with their pit crews, and that provided some entertainment as well, along with a conundrum - by listening in to the radio chatter, we knew things which fans who didn't have headsets did not, like the fact that race leader Stewart would run out of fuel too early to finish and therefore was destined to lose.
It probably goes without saying that a NASCAR race is loud. Really loud. Rather than pumping music into the stands like baseball stadiums do, a NASCAR race has music of its own provided by the varying hum of different car engines.
Other big differences compared to other sports:
Not only can you smoke in the stadium (Phillip Morris had a plant and tobacco fields right down the road), but you're allowed to bring a small cooler containing whatever beverages you choose, including alcohol. However, the latter seemed to backfire thanks to the near 90-degree temperature on race day.
A fistfight broke out in the stands. People around us got sick in a variety of different ways. One woman almost passed out from becoming overheated. A guy, while heading down the steps, began to throw up. A lot. And didn't stop, just kept walking down. There were mass casualties, and with nowhere for the mess and smell to go, I was glad when the sun went down.
Finally - and this was a huge turnoff - the vast commercialization of the event permeated everything down there. Nothing is just a race, or the name of a driver. Even a tent at the entrance to the campgrounds that was blasting "Baby Got Back" each night served as a huge ad for a D.J. service. It was all brought to me by something or other company or product and I hated it.
The Fans
Many NASCAR fans are nuts - nuts about their favorite drivers to the point where their sports emotions parallel only those I've felt during the World Series. The intense passion these people have both impressed and appalled me. Take the Hickory, N.C. resident and Stewart fan who sat beside me for the race.
"My name's Buddy. I know that's a redneck name," he said with the kind of self-defeatist attitude of a person whose heard such comments his whole life. Like others from North Carolina and parts thereabout whom I've met, Buddy had a wicked sense of humor. "There's only two things I'm afraid of: heights and midgets. You know, Little People. They scare me. I run from them every time I see them. I saw four yesterday," he proclaimed with all seriousness.
At the beginning of the race, Buddy filled me in a little on the nuances of the sport and was happy to answer any questions I had. As a self-proclaimed redneck, I found him to be more-than informative and refreshingly in favor of change and diversity in the sport (he said he liked Juan Pablo Montoya). But for the last 100 laps or so, he was in agony. Stewart was leading and Buddy clutched his head, rocked back and forth, clutched his hands and generally looked like he was fixin' to explode. At one point, in tears, he proclaimed it to be the best race he'd ever seen and that he was, ahem, in love with racing. He worried out loud that he may have a heart attack.
Other fans were equally intense. As drivers whizzed by, people would point to their favorite driver, follow them around the curve with their finger and holler encouragement. "I'm going to yell at you like you can hear meeeee!" Buddy screamed. One woman did a little jig and yelled every time her favorite driver came around, then sat curled up at the end of the race, shaking her head as if trying to wish away the ultimately bad outcome.
I honestly can't imagine experiencing such highs and lows, as if every race was the only one, all season long. Whereas baseball fans like me have more of a hate relationship with their favorite team, NASCAR fans are all about the love and heartache. I felt bad for Buddy, who mourned as if he'd lost a relative. NASCAR is obviously physically and mentally exhausting for some people and I don't really envy that type of fandom.
Camping
We hauled a 32-foot camper down to Morehead Camp Grounds just down the road from the track and over the course of the three-day holiday weekend I don't believe I've ever seen so much partying, drinking and drug use in all my life. I was surprised and disturbed to see many people with young kids, and those adults didn't look like first-time Coca-Cola 600 attendees. Some of them were partying hard themselves (with both legal and illegal substances) as their children played around them. Shame on them. You in particular, Brett!
Campers in general were more than friendly in that what-happens-here-stays-here kind of way. Any woman under the age of 80 was in jeopardy of being asked to show her boobs for ugly cheap beads (because a lot of people these days seem to think they're at Mardi Gras when they're not) or for, say, the Goodyear blimp (two of which floated above the area). And while cat calls directed my way did serve as a confidence booster (as in "Yes! I've still got it!"), after a while it just got annoying. There were plenty of women who were more than happy to bare it all to strangers for nothing in return, but I wasn't one of them.
Many stayed up until way past midnight, and I'll admit that my friends and I did so one night until 4 a.m., talking with our tent neighbors (thanks for checking in on me when I was sorely hung over, Robb with two 'B's). I feared we'd be wedged between Larry the Cable Guy and drunk college kids, but we were lucky to have a relatively isolated camp site next to a hill, and to not be in the general vicinity of any heavy partiers. They could still be heard off in the distance (especially since the camp sites were primitive and no generator usage was allowed after midnight), but not enough to stave off sleep.
Every now and then we'd also get bugged by people wanting money for this and that charity, although we did get free food as a promotional ploy.
The overall camping experience didn't come cheap, even with the $100 site rental. Add $25 to that price for gray water removal, $10 because the coffee pot I brought didn't work, about $3 per small bag of ice, and all the camping accoutrements that one needs -- like bug spray, sunscreen and food -- and before you know it, you're broke.
A Blond Moment
I know nothing about racing and this incident proves my ignorance. I bought a local newspaper and briefly glanced at the headline of an AP article proclaiming Friday as Carb Day. "The drivers must eat a lot of carbs to boost their energy for the big race day," I maintained. Not quite. "Joy, Carb Day is short for Carburetion Day," my one friend said before practically doubling over. And it was a practice event that took place for the Indy 500 race, not the Coca-Cola 600. It's instances like those that make for some good laughs on such a weekend, along with what a friend and I described as "southern hospitality" - an outhouse randomly dropped alongside the freeway in the middle of nowhere.
Would I Go Back?
That's the question I've been asking myself. But first, have I turned into a NASCAR fan? That answer is no. The race was interesting in person, and I was intrigued by the drivers' staminas, but it's still about people driving in a circle for a long period of time and it just doesn't interest me enough. I'll pay closer attention if I ever catch parts of races on TV, now knowing about things like "lucky dog" and people like Humpy, but I won't really be rooting for any particular driver or getting into arguments about whether NASCAR has completely messed up the points system to favor particular teams. I'll leave that to the die hard fans and probably keep getting my digs in here as I always have. If Montoya is mentioned, I'll be more likely to yell "Say hello to my leetle friend!" since his name resembles that of Al Pacino's character in the movie "Scarface."
But I would go back, primarily because of the people I met there and the experiences I had, both good and bad. Even though it involved NASCAR, it was interesting, different and fun - all the key ingredients one really needs for a good holiday weekend mini vacation. You can't really ask for much more than that, and Charlotte delivered.
By Courier reporter Joy Brown
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