At one time you might have skipped over a TV channel showing a NASCAR race and thought, "Wow, this is boring, who actually watches this stuff?" Maybe you've wondered what the deal is with the brightly colored t-shirts with signatures, over-embroidered hats or giant, slanted numbers. If the above applies to you, or you simply wish to be educated, this article is for you.
Before I met Emily, I was of the opinion that NASCAR was kind of like a smellier, more expensive traffic circle. Emily, an avid fan, decided to start her One-Race-Per-Year tradition and invited me to go to a race. She offered to pay and she's awfully cute, so I consented.
I'm typing this on the way back from my second NASCAR race, the Coca Cola 600 (2004), which was held at the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. What follows is what I've learned and is probably enough to win you a few bets.
NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, has three leagues ("series") that compete during the racing season, which lasts from mid-February to mid-November. The Nextel Cup Series (which was the Winston Cup until 2004) is the largest and most popular, and it races almost every week on Sunday. The Nextel series has the big-name drivers you're always hearing about such as Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. The Busch Cup Series is the smaller league, which races every Saturday. Finally there's the Craftsman Truck Series, which sometimes races on Fridays, but not many people watch it. (For relative scale, imagine the Nextel Series as Major League Baseball, Busch as Triple-A baseball, and Craftsman as Arena Football.)
Every weekend, teams in each league race to collect points, like cereal box-tops. Teams get points for being on the lead lap (more on that in a second) as well as for what position then end up at the end of the race (that's tasty cereal). The team with the most points at the end of the season wins and gets lots of champagne poured on them, plus a fun prize.
The race starts by having all of the cars follow the "pace car" (usually a sedan or some promotional vehicle), which turns off right before the starting lap. Cars move up to around 200 miles per hour on the larger tracks, which usually don't require "restrictor plates" to make the cars go slower. The faster cars might even lap slower ones. Cars tend experience everyday problems such as tires wearing out and lack of gas, thus they "pit" every now and then to get refueled, a new set of tires, or a mechanical repair. Cars also tend to pit during "caution laps," which are called when there's debris on the track or when something exploded. Cars generally win by being fast and being fully-functional. Having a skilled driver behind the wheel who can make crucial moves like passing people and avoiding walls is also very important.
Imagine football for a second. In NASCAR, instead of teams playing one another, every team plays every other team at the same place. Additionally, NASCAR teams have a figurehead that receives most of the attention, the driver, even though it really is the whole team that gets the win—much like quarterbacks in football.
Now think of one of the not-so-great teams in the NFL that hasn't done well in a while. That NFL team will still be there next year, no matter how badly they do, unless they get some sort of overhaul (like the Oilers). By contrast, if you're a competitor in NASCAR, your wallet tends to get thinner rather than thicker. Everyone buys the same tires and fuel from NASCAR, which costs a pile of money. If you don't have much money, you don't get to improve and tune up your car(s) as much, and you don't race as often. This why sponsors are important and why cars drive around with giant M&M's on the hood.
When I went to my first race in Florida, I expected the worst: shirtless, confederate-flag toting yokels with fists full of Bud Light and an accent that could twist your arm off. Surprisingly, there wasn't much of this in Homestead, but my recent trip to North Carolina definitely fulfilled this vision.
Truthfully, behind the "Dale Earnhardt, Gone But Not Forgotten" tattoos and the mirrored sport sunglasses are very friendly and enthusiastic fans who consistently ask where you're from and who you're rooting for. Once they learn the latter, they then proceed to scoff at your driver choice in a friendly and sportsmanlike manner.
NASCAR fans are generally great people and they provide a nice contrast with the likes of "riot if they win, riot if they don't" people around here (Boston).
As I mentioned earlier, NASCAR is all about the money. And, lovingly enough, lots of the money made by the bigger teams is given to charity. This is yet another reason to like a sport that a refreshing break from the pay-offs, contracts, salary caps and general whining of other sports.
The NASCAR drivers are (mostly) good guys, too --- believe it or not, they're normal people. When I saw a few of them in person, they all admitted to being normal guys that simply love racing. They all made a comment along the lines of, "I've been racing since I was 8 years old and I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up." (Make sure to imagine that quote with southern drawl.)
NASCAR probably isn't the most interesting sport to watch on TV, but seeing it live is much more exciting. While I'm not an expert on all of the facts, I hope the above has enlightened you just a little. Next up, the New Hampshire International Speedway.
(Adam gets the credit for the original traffic-circle quote.)
© Ian Langworth