Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2001/12/03/on_nascar_and_life.php
Monday, December 3, 2001
Race day. Just north of Loudon, NH the New Hampshire International Speedway sits snugly in a pine-covered hillside a few hundred yards off an inconspicuous two-lane road. The New Hampshire 300 is New England's largest spectator event. It draws crowds of over 100,000 people. Some travel hours to get a glimpse of their favorite NASCAR drivers and participate in the carnival that is NASCAR.
NASCAR is the sporting nation's largest draw, and it consistently packs grandstands weekly for most of the year. Over 98,000 ventured out to the track on an atypically balmy fall afternoon. The race had been scheduled for September 16, but the terror attacks forced its postponement.
NASCAR is more than a sporting event. It is a cultural phenomenon. The crowd is blue-collar, chugging Budweiser after Budweiser, chain smoking Marlboro Lights (the women drink Bud Light and smoke Basics), and driving Chevy supercabs. A few splurge and smoke cheap cigars. The kids have rattails. The dads have mullets. The moms have tattoos. Jerry Jeff Walker is a household name. There is a refreshing lack of pretentiousness: no one fills his cooler with Magic Hat or another specialty microbrew or voted for Al Gore.
We ventured to the track without tickets—the race had sold out on September 16— and hoped to buy tickets off a scalper or anyone with extras. This is a special day for race fans, a day to forget the drudgery of work and kick back. Some bring the kids; others left them at home. No one complained about $60 tickets, a price we found remarkably high.
Three men and one woman marched to the track directly in front of us. The men, in jeans, sweatshirts, dirty boots and hats, each carried a small aqua cooler. The woman carried a green NASCAR duffel bag. One of them asked Larry to 'lug' his jacket. Larry declined. They reeked of tequila. The race didn't start until noon, but the fans keep working hours, often arriving when the gates open at 6 AM.
Recently NASCAR enacted a rule that restricts the size of coolers that patrons can bring to the track. As a result, men and women carry cases of beer and large, cumbersome duffel bags. Warm beer is better than no beer.
Our ticket problem got solved neatly. Walking through endless rows of trucks, Harry spotted a notebook paper sign on a muddy Jimmy with Connecticut plates saying that two tickets were for sale. The men inside were scruffy and blue collar; the driver wore a maroon hat with the words 'Local 424' and 'New Haven' on the back. We tapped on the driver's side window, but wiry, ruff-shaven Ed seemed to have forgotten about his ticket-selling venture. He and his nameless buddy were swilling Bud and sucking on Marlboros. He quickly snapped out of his daze when we offered cash for his tickets. The two of us exchanged skeptical glances, seeing the September 16 rain date on the tickets, but obviously with his condition and his own identically-dated tickets, Ed was not any sort of professional con artist.
The race begins. The pace car guides the racers around for a few laps, and then it veers off into pit row, right in front of us in our second-row, fourth-turn seats. The stockcars approach. A steadily increasing buzz accompanies them. It explodes into a great roar as the cars burst by. Their passing is followed by a thousand heads shifting from left to right to watch them as they speed down the track. The sound of 42 engines at full power is deafening. Our ears rattle, and we shortly leave to purchase two pairs of the two-dollar earplugs and wonder how the elderly couple sitting to our left could stand the noise without any ear protection whatsoever. Were they deaf?
The concession area contains the usual stadium fare, but an unexpected circus sideshow greets us in the cavernous space beneath the bleachers. Brightly colored eighteen-wheelers from each racing team form an arcade and vend hundreds of embroidered pit-crew jerseys, air brushed tank tops, and the numbered mesh baseball caps that almost every fan seems to wear.
With all of these colors swirling in our minds, we return to the race. We walk back in front of the grandstand and then to the finish line where a race official waves his green flag to signal the end of a caution. Almost within reach, the cars flash by us, blowing hats off as they accelerate to full-speed. Because of tire blistering from Goodyear tires too soft for the conditions, the wheels throw tiny flecks of rubber at our feet and in our eyes. Only seconds later, the fleeting thrill once again replaces the smell of high-octane fuel exhaust.
We pause for a moment longer to watch the pit crews erupt from their respective outposts to service several cars during a caution. Finally, we return to our seats to find our friends in a similar state to that in which we left them: drunken.
Ten beers and a hundred laps into the race, Ed turns to Larry and tells me he has to go to the bathroom. He is not making an effort to move, and we are getting kind of worried.
'I've got to piss, but I can't get out,' Ed says as he points to his right, gesturing at the fat women blocking his path of egress. 'I think I'm just going to step down and jump over the railing.'
'Ed, there's about a fifteen foot drop on the other side of the railing. Why don't you just come out this way? We'll make room,' Larry says.
'I can jump far,' he says, and beer and spit land on Larry's palm.
He motions to stand up, but he can't, and he slouches back onto the bleacher. He pulls out a fresh pack of smokes, packs them on his right palm, peels off the cellophane, and pulls out a cigarette. The ashes fall on his shoe.
Fifteen beers and Ed turns to us and asks for whom Larry pulls. As Ed sways back and forth, Larry remarks that he really doesn't care, careful not to mention Jeff Gordon, knowing that Ed passionately dislikes the Rainbow Warrior. Larry also didn't want to mention a racer who may have died recently. He hasn't kept up with NASCAR too well this year. Ed faltered and then said, nudging Larry, 'Come on, you got to pull for someone.' He lit a Marlboro and turned his attention to the track. Five minutes later, he tapped Larry on the shoulder and said, 'You know, I don't care either. I really don't give a damn who wins.'
Ed stood up and staggered his way down the row, almost falling on one man. The bathroom apparently could not wait. 'I don't know him,' his buddy told us. He had been gone for about forty-five minutes when his buddy began to worry. The buddy had been silent for most of the race, casually swilling brew. He appeared in total control of himself, able to express thoughts in a coherent fashion, unlike Ed. Then he stood up to go search for Ed, and he tipped over onto Harry.
We turned our focus to the action of the race. Except for a crash right in front of us that knocked Georgia native and father-to-be Buckshot Jones out of the race and another incident in the third turn that ended regional favorite Ricky Craven's ill-fated season, we found that without the aid of a radio our snapshot glimpses of the racers each lap didn't do much to illuminate who was winning.
NASCAR has seen an exponential increase in popularity over the past two decades. The appeal of NASCAR has long been a mystery to many. A spectator can see very little of the race, and what he does see is difficult to determine. The action happens so fast—180 miles per hour—and then it's gone. The drivers have cardboard personalities. The fans never see them anyway; only the car. The race program, in fact, listed the driver of the Number 31 car, which won the race, as Mike Skinner, though Robby Gordon had replaced him midway through the season. The fans, however, have definite favorites. Tony Stewart received a chorus of raucous boos at the introductions (yet the man in front of us wore a replica Home Depot Tony Stewart racing suit). Jeff Gordon is either loved or hated. Every time Gordon rounded turn four, Ed yelled 'Crash!' His buddy sported a Number 24 Rainbow Warrior Cap.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. remains a sentimental favorite. He never challenged in the race, but fans have translated grief over his father's death to support for Junior. The death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. still resounds among race fans. A traveling memorial to the Intimidator was present at the race, and fans wrote messages to the late driver. One fan wrote, 'They got [sic] checkered flags in heaven.' Others simply wore Number 3 apparel. One mourner offered us a pen, so we could post our thoughts to Dale. We couldn't add anything new and passed.
The sheer speed and power of the racecars and the precision of the drivers had been quite a thrill, but we only saw real excitement as the lap ticker approached 300. All the action occurs in the last twenty laps. The drivers will do anything to take the lead. Drivers were not quite as hungry in this race since Jeff Gordon had already taken the Winston Cup title the previous week in Atlanta. This race was merely a consolation prize. Still, at least one driver was not satisfied with the name that had remained atop the leader pole for 257 laps of the 300-mile race.
With sixteen laps remaining, Robby Gordon rear-ended leader Jeff Gordon and spun him out. Jeff somehow maintained control of the car and accelerated and intentionally crashed into Robby right in front of our position, sending cars in every direction. 'I ought to take him out right now,' Jeff screamed to his pit crew over the radio.
After the race, tempers still flared. '[Robby] should be embarrassed to win like that,' Jeff Gordon said. 'But hey, I understand why guys do that kind of stuff. I just wish I had taken his tire down or something so at least he wouldn't have won the race.'
Robby was equally brazen. 'I didn't spin [Jeff],' he said. 'I just moved him a little bit up the race track and then I had to go. I've heard a lot of people over the years call that racing.'
The victory did have sentimental quality and gave closure to a tumultuous season. Robby, who has struggled for most of his career, was driving for Richard Childress, who owned Dale Earnhardt's car. Earnhardt died at the season opening Daytona 500 when he crashed into a wall. 'It's a nice to go out this way, but nothing will ever fill the void left by Dale,' Childress said. 'I've still got an emptiness.'
The race ended, and 100,000 people filed out from the bleachers. It was raining beer from the stands above.
Ed emerged from the pack, his hands full with a burger and fries. 'I waited in line for this for an hour,' he said. 'I missed the race.'
'Robby Gordon won,' Harry said. 'He spun Jeff Gordon out with a few laps left, but I know you don't like Jeff Gordon.'
'At least he drives a Chevy. Where's my truck?'
The traffic from the race dissipated after we passed the turn onto I-93 and we turned onto the country road in Franklin, and the twilight reflected orange off the Merrimack River. The post-race radio show played on the AM and the commentators ran down the action. They were discussing Robby Gordon's questionable tactics.
'So who is that Robby Gordon anyway?' Harry said, as the radio began to crackle.
'I don't know. He came out of nowhere. He hadn't even been at the top all day,' Larry said.
'That's the thing about NASCAR. It seems so unfair sometimes. But really, I guess, it's just a lot like life,' Harry said, staring straight ahead.
'I don't know really—that's just racin'.'