#BACKTHEBLUE at NASCAR

speaking of early black race car drivers Mojo Nixon wrote a song about it! It's "The Ballad Of Wendell Scott"

 

I saw a race at the Nashville Fairgrounds speedway. My favorite was the Legends series. In my mind, every time they crashed, midgets jumped out and started chasing each other around.

 

So you are saying wind is the big attraction? So if I sat in front of a big fan I could get all the excitement only I do not have to pay money and hang around with racist white trash for hours? I could watch on my home TV and have a beer that does not cost 20 dollars and a shitty hot dog I waited an hour on line for? I could also flip channels and watch something more exciting and perhaps just watch the highlights of all the crashes and not spend hours at the race only to be caught in the traffic getting out?

Sounds like big fan FTW! Especially since I know what Talladega looks like. At least daytona and charlotte have some things to do. There is Alabama nothing in that town.

 

go on....

 

I don’t know how they race in that place, it is so small.

 

This is like Formula One racing. I know the many practical reasons why they can't both from a safety and competitive perspective, but I often wish they would just remove all the technical rules on cars and see what happens. Get them out there with jet turbines strapped on and all kind of insanity.

 

Fun fact: In the 60s someone entered a turbine car in Indy. It had to retire from the race early due to a bad wheel bearing or something like that. The car, however, had handily lapped everyone else in the race and the committee rewrote the rules to prohibit anyone from ever entering a turbine again before they'd pitted.

 

They crash a lot...and then midgets jump out and start chasing each other around.

 

Height disadvantaged folks?

 

Wait! I thought you were white trash too, no? You don't work...you're on drugs...you've got other situations going on...and you're calling other people out?

 

Never got into NASCAR until the late 2000s, and then really just because I was interested in the technology of how they broadcast the races with all the different camera angles. Now it's all old hat, though.

I did ride two or three laps at Texas Motor Speedway while shooting a feature there in 2001 and about ten years earlier I got to drive my news unit around the then newly-reopened Texas World Speedway on the day they announced they were going to start racing there again after a ten-year hiatus. Taking a Dodge Ramcharger around the curves was...interesting.

These days the only time I have it on the television is if I'm looking to take a nap. NASCAR and golf will put me to sleep in no time.

 

Whereas you're just trash.

 

And here I thought we were friends.

 

How fast did you have to go to keep it from sliding down the bank?

 

I don't know because I buried the speedometer.

Because the press conference was a big deal, we had two cameras there so the assistant chief photog and I raced each other.

I won.

 

You keep posting that. Convince me that I should be friends with a bigot, a misogynist, a homophobe, and someone who pretends to be of an ethnicity he is not in order to get attention. I'm willing to listen. But not for long.

 

That's crazy talk right there. Really hurts my feelings.

 

Nice try, I give it a two.

However, have you actually been to Talladega? I have. If you thought of a white trash town and then wwent to Talladega you would see exactly what is in your head. The town is dead without the track, and when there is nothing going on there. It is low rent for Alabama. I really could not believe it was the racetrack town when I first saw it. I had to ask if there was another town where the races happen because holy shit was it pathetic. I am pretty sure even meth avoids talladega.

 

I've never been a NASCAR fan. I only go to that area because I policed at the track and now I'm involved in ministry at the track. The State has to show up and maintain a police presence, but the Track pays Municipal and County agencies double-time pay for everyone they send. I could make nearly a whole pay period twice per year on a Thursday - Sunday. Like everything else, it had its ups and downs. It was fun though, in one respect. NASCAR wanted a Police car on the track every day of race weekend from sunset to sunrise to watch for people throwing stuff over the fence onto the track. I got to drive that a few times. We'd take turns with two officers in a car and rotate at fuel stops.

Due to the Track's insurance regulations, we had to wear helmets while we drove on the track and NASCAR gave us some real ones that they use. So, we'd put on our helmets and wedge a bucket of KFC chicken into the console. We'd then set the cruise on 100mph with the lights on but no siren and just drive in circles until we needed gas. We'd do that all night.

Unfortunately, that's not necessary anymore. With the last remodel, they put in a concrete path all the way around the track, so guys from motorscout units just putz around the perimeter all night.

 

When I was in high school I actually ended up working for a lower end racing team. The tracks were not oval and there were multiple classes of vehicles that would run on the weekend. I actually loved going to limerock CT. The reality was the curved tracks that wound around for miles were really boring to watch because you simply could not see the whole thing, so you just waited for the cars to scream on by unless you were working for a team. More of the day was about the paddock and having an afternoon there. I am saying there is probably a purpose for the round track with NASCAR. It probably gives more visibility to the fans.

There is also a lot more minority participation in those smaller races. My friend was black, and it was his Uncle who owned the team. There were hispanic and black owners, drivers, and team members everywhere. If you go into other racing forms there is more diversity, especially if you get outside of america. We always joked about NASCAR as being the prima donna area of racing.

I was essentially shocked when I first went through the town because I could not believe how dead it was. I would think cops would have had their thrill of the wind rushing by them as big rigs cruised by at high speeds.

 

It's not just the wind. Each one of those cars is producing about 800hp in a naturally aspirated V8. When 40 of them go past you in less than two seconds, it's literally an earth moving experience.

We have a short line that hauls freight from local industries and does shuttle runs between CSX and Norfolk Southern. I've ridden that several times and even when they double-head a train with GP38's, even that is nothing like the experience of those cars. You literally feel it in your bones and it rattles your teeth.

I can see the allure of NASCAR. Bristol is the shortest track on the circuit and I've been to two night races there. Now, those are fun to watch. You can see everything and jamming 40 cars into a half-mile track is fun because of the constant leader changes and fighting for position. But, so often, Talladega and Daytona just turn into follow the leader. Five cars in a line out front with everyone else bunched up 3-4 rows wide 50 yards behind the lead pack. That would get boring to watch, in my mind. I'm sure it's terrifying for the drivers in the pack though. Just one lapse in concentration and you risk killing yourself and taking out 20+ other cars and drivers with you.

 

If the rumbling floats your boat I can get that. As a person who has driven professionally, and quickly, in some of the worst NYC and other places have to offer I find the NASCAR pack to be stable. You generally have most of the cars going the same speed and they are not going to vary much. Anticipating a path through the variations of five lanes of very different moving traffic and watching out for other drivers making radical moves no one in NASCAR would ever do is a little more skillfull. The reality they are at top speed is interesting, but it just ends up being a little boring. Then there is the endurance. Sure you are doing 500 miles, but you are only talking a couple of hours of driving. 500 miles is about what I would do in a day under 100, and through traffic a lot worse than nascar.

I would really have to say truck drivers on long hauls or taxi drivers have more to deal with excitement wise than any nascar driver in a race. Speed is just something you can become comfortable with and know your car. No pot holes, suicide animals, crazy old people, or work crews to deal with. Then if there is some imperfection everyone slows down and drives in line again. If you want to see emergency driving wait until some old person comes out of publix trying to make a left through 6 lanes of florida traffic and no one gets hurt or trades paint.

 

Tererun just hit a nerve - let me paint this picture: I'm in the CVS parking lot on a corner of two busy roads. Turning left out of either parking lot entrance/exits is not an option because it's a constant wall of cars. The only way for me to get home is to turn right, go down to the first subdivision entrance and wait in the suicide lane to go into the subdivision and turn around and then make a safe right hand turn. You all know the drill - sometimes business are positioned so that you can't even get to the traffic light intersection (and in the proper lane) to make the turn you need to make. In theory it's possible, but only at 2:00 AM and the roads look like they do in the DMV driver license test study guide pictures. You know, the guides where they don't have turn lanes completely filled up with a line of cars 100 yards long in gridlock just to get into the turn lane!

Anyway when trying to leave the CVS parking lot I always have the luck of getting behind that dimwit that is trying to turn left. It's one lane for exiting the parking lot, one lane for entering. Other than hopping the curb and driving through the grass (not gonna happen in a VW Jetta plus that's not legal) I can't make my easy-peasy right hand turn because dimwit is going to camp out and wait..and wait....and wait for an opening in the traffic (that may never come within our lifetimes) to make that left hand turn.

 

I've encountered so damn many places that should be two lanes - straight or left and right-turn-only - that are instead left-turn-only and straight or right. There is always, always a line of cars trying to turn right stacked up behind the one moron going straight.

 

Solution: roundabouts!

 

Y'know another thing that makes me crazy? Manholes. Who the fuck designs and builds a road, then says to themself "this nice new road needs built-in potholes"? I mean, they're never flush with the roadway, always either raised or sunk, and they're always placed right where your tires run! For fuck's sake, put the damn things either in the center or off to the side so they're not right in the damn way!

 

Oh, that's not going in anyone's sig. Nosiree.

 

This is why I suggest a disintegration beam be added to all cars that belong to me,

 

speaking of "built in potholes" it amazes me to this day how a brand new freeway overpass can be built in a few weeks but that HUGE suspension/tire demolishing/motorcyclist killing pothole at the entrance to my subdivision has been there for several years now.
Yes I know "different set of funds!" and all that, but come on folks....it's still bullshit.