Any NASCAR fans

Not a NASCAR fan, but I have an interesting story that is related.

Back in the early and mid 90's I was an owner/operator with my own semi truck. I travelled all over the country. On one trip I was travelling through North Carolina (NASCAR heaven) on I-95 and pulled into an open weigh station. There is a little shack (separate from the scale house) right next to the scale where an attendant can ask you questions to determine if you are alert and awake or not. As I pulled on to the scale, the attendant slid the window open and asked me, "What kind of car does Rusty Wallace drive?"

Not being a NASCAR fan by any stretch of the imagination, I have no idea who Rusty Wallace is, nor am I aware that he had recently switched from Ford to Chevy or vice versa, so I respond with "Pardon me?"

Once again, he asked "What kind of car does Rusty Wallace drive?"

My response should have gotten me shot for blasphemy in North Carolina: "Who the hell is Rusty Wallace??"

The attendant looked at me intently for a moment and said "You really don't know, do you?"

"Nope, and I don't really care, either."

"Get outta here, driver, and have a good day."
 
When NASCAR got away from running factory based cars, and went to the cookie cutter rules (body templates, etc.) I totally lost interest. Had they stuck to stock based, Race on Sunday sell on Monday formula, I think it would have been better for everyone, fans, technology, safety, etc., But when you have one dynasty running the show forever, the inbreeding eventually takes it's toll. I'm sure there are other totally different opinions out there, but that's my two cents worth. Mike
 
I'm not a Nascar fan but I have been to 3 Nascar races at California Speedway in Fontana (I think it's called Auto Club Speedway now) with my old co-workers. They were hardcore fans, tailgate & everything. I must say I thought it would be boring to just sit there and watch race cars go around in circles but every single time I had an absolute blast.

One of those times it rained crazy while we were tailgating & had to wait till they dried off the track but I still had just as much fun as the other 2 times.

On a side note Irwindale Speedway is closing, being replaced by a shopping mall. Another race track lost for SoCal. :(
 
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Tony, I fully understand spending time with your daughter, I would do the same.

Like most, I do enjoy going to the races, whether they be NASCAR or just the local dirt track, but I just can't bring myself to be a die hard fan like some folks are. My sister LIVES for NASCAR and spends much of her summer travelling to various races around the country. Luckily she's single so she can afford it.
 
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That particular weekend was an exceptional event. My daughter wanted to take me, as I was just kind of off and on a cane and thought I might enjoy getting out of the house, so she bought tickets to Sunday's race. She also had entered a photo captioning contest that one of the driver's sponsors had running for 4 hot passes for all 3 days, and won. She had bought tickets for just the Cup race on Sunday, but a cousin I have that runs a repair shop got tickets for the Xfinity series run on Saturday as a perk and passed them to us. We spent Friday all day in the infield because we didn't want to buy grandstand tickets to the truck races and the hot passes let us stay in. Saturday we had both the hot passes and the gifted tickets, so could go sit in the stands or stay in the infield area, same as Sunday. We were both worn out, and I was pretty miserable because of my leg/hip by the end of it all, but it was a once in a lifetime chance. Got to meet a lot of the drivers and a couple of team owners. All in all, it was fun. Got to know one of the security guys well enough he let me sit in his chair and rest when my leg was hurting.

<<<<<Met The King and got that pic of him and my daughter. Also met Michael Waltrip. Hilarious guy.....hoot to be around.

It did rain, and delay the race for about 5 hours, as I recall.....and got rather chilly. We found a pretty good spot under one of the tire canopies until it stopped raining and they started drying the track, then walked back to the Jeep to get dry shoes and socks and warm up a bit.

I'm with you, Mike.....I'll take the old cars over all these fakes now. The only improvement they really can claim is safety. But it's supposed to be risky, it's racing.
 
Talladega, Las Vegas, Fontana, (I used to work for Kaiser Steel) Atlanta, been there and had a great time, it doesn't matter to me if it's "stock cars" or purpose built race cars, It's a Happening, and I've always enjoyed myself. I took the De Walt Pit Crew Challenge at Las Vegas and ended up in 76th place and went back to the track on the following Tuesday for the Richard Petty Driving Experience; three laps at race speed for $99. that comes out to about a dollar per second, money well spent.
 
Planning on treating my daughter to that as soon as I can. She doesn't drive a stick, so she will just do the ride-along, but I want to take a few hot laps. I don't trust that my clutch leg is strong enough yet, so I will wait a while. Wanted to do that for a long time.
 
Looked like your daughter got her picture taken with all of the cute young looking guys there, too. She get lucky?
Thanks for sharing, that's definitely a once in a life time adventure and to remember for life!
 
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