A quick aside before I get into Saturday’s race.
Yep, this is just gonna keep goin’ on and on. Kinda just like a NASCAR race.
And ya know what? Maybe it should. A NASCAR race is a marathon. And granted, my NASCAR marathon was one of eating and drinking and hanging out and watching cars hurl themselves around a circular track, but, hey, it’s a marathon nonetheless.
So back to the quick aside.
NASCAR fans are amazingly and beautifully rabid. Holy shit. They’re the warmest, most genuine and friendliest tattooed and pierced folks you’ll ever meet.
I’m thinkin’ that maybe because of the frenzied love of their sport, they manage to somehow get along and share a communal experience on a weekend basis with hundreds of thousands of their closest buds?
I’ve never, ever, seen anything like it.
That you can cram a whole bunch of possibly, probably, volatile folks into a hopped up, high octane fueled, super-charged, environment armed with coolers full of cold beer and force them sit all day waiting for a night time race in the hot sun on aluminum bleachers is amazing enough.
But that around six-pack number two, the fights don’t break out was way surprising to me. That tattooed beer bellied nipple pierced Bubba doesn’t get really tired of tattooed beer bellied nipple pierced Bobba staring at his chick’s halter top and starts whaling on him in the hot humidness was (is?), I think, truly amazing.
But they don’t.
They all hang out. They drink and yell and scream and mostly just take their numbered, speedy-looking, NASCAR tee-shirts off and wave ’em around like the flags that’re flying everywere.
The NASCAR Nation clumps together, becoming a huge ONE-ness, an entity bigger than it’s parts, something cool to watch. And the best part?
Nobody gets pissed off- everybody hangs and has fun.
Maybe the rest of the world should be takin’ a lesson from these people.
Just sayin’.