When I was in grade school, my family and I would visit my grandparents’ house every Sunday afternoon.
While my siblings and I scarfed down bags of Lay’s Potato Chips (always a perk of being at my grandparents’ house) we had one of two things on the television: The National Football League, or NASCAR.
Why NASCAR? Well, I’m not really sure. My grandfather worked the night shift at Ford for much of his life and loved cars. My dad and brother know a lot about cars, too. But still, I have no idea how any of us got hooked on the sport.
But we watched the cars drive around the oval race track each week. We pulled for anyone driving a Ford, and we didn’t like Jeff Gordon. Once again, I’m not too sure why, but he was probably too successful for us (Clevelanders don’t experience much winning).
I stopped going over there each Sunday during high school, and in effect, lost the connection with NASCAR. I stopped watching the races and eventually stopped caring who won. Jimmie Johnson probably did, right? He wins everything, right?
That all changed this weekend when I attended my first race.
I went to Martinsville Speedway for the STP 500 with my friend and his father. They told me I was about to see the most interesting group of people in the world, and they weren’t wrong. There were people who could barely speak English selling merchandise, men with the thickest of Southern accents debating and of course, college kids doing keg stands in the grass parking lots.
It was frigid when we arrived, with a little bit of snow falling onto our windshield. The wind was blowing at a brisk 25 mph, causing me to quickly regret not bringing that extra sweatshirt.
There were cars everywhere. It reminded me of a country concert I attended last summer, but on a much larger scale. Any which way I’d look, I just saw cars and cars and cars.
Then, we strolled down to where the drivers’ trailers were. Larger than life portraits of Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and others were plastered on them and t-shirts with their likenesses were being sold from them. We were walking at the opportune moment, apparently, because a shaded golf cart pulled up with security surrounding us. Out walked a tiny woman wearing a black jacket and jeans named Danica Patrick.
She spoke at her trailer about her recent birthday, and we continued walking. We spent more than an hour searching through tents with knock-off NASCAR merchandise in it for the best possible deals. In honor of seeing her so up-close in person, I bought this navy blue hat that says “DANICA #16” on it for $1. Who knows when I’ll ever wear that.
We arrived at our seats about 30 minutes prior to the green flag. The track looks drastically different from the stands as it does on TV, as does the racing. While it’s tough to hear the crowd over the roar of the engines, it’s easy to tell fans’ allegiances. They’ll stand up and yell angrily when a driver they dislike passes, or they’ll wave a flag and flap their arms when their favorite driver comes by.
We saw an entertaining race, too. Kurt Busch won after an event-record 33 lead changes. As soon as the checkered flag was waved, the three of us sprinted for the exits to the car so we could beat the traffic. Overall, it was an awesome experience.
Martinsville was the perfect track for my first race. It’s in the middle of nowhere with no major interstates near it and also one of the oldest speedways in the nation.
So it was only fitting that there I regained my age-old love for the sport of NASCAR.