I got into NASCAR when a buddy of mine asked me to come over and watch a race with him. Part way through the race, I said “dude, this is boring”. He insisted that if I picked a driver to root for, it would be much more fun. I said “which driver races kind of dirty, is an asshole, and people don’t like”. He said Dale Sr., I said ok, and Sr. won the race. I was hooked!
When Sr. died, I had already decided that Jr. was worthless. So the next asshole in line was Tony Stewart. I became a huge fan of his. The next race at Bristol, I had hot-passes and ran across him in the pits. I very politely asked him if he could sign my straw cowboy hat. He literally ignored me. I mean acted like I wasn’t even there. As I stood there in disbelief, he signed 3 other guys hats and 2 die cast cars. He didn’t sign my hat because it didn’t say Tony Stewart on it. That night while everyone was sitting around the campfire, I went and got everything that had his name on it and threw it all in the fire. Hats, t-shirts, a couple flags, and a really nice pit jacket (yes, there was an abundance of moonshine involved)! I was done with him.
So on to the next rookie asshole, Kyle Busch. Man, it was so much fun rooting for him! Again, at Bristol, he swept all 3 races that weekend. Everyone was booing him after the Cup race. Except me! It felt like I was the only person in the Last Great Colosseum than was standing up and cheering! Now, NASCAR has made all of the drivers into pussies, and I rarely follow it anymore. I still usually have it on the TV on Sundays, but it’s just background noise while I’m doing other things. I did enjoy Busch’s fight with Stenhouse though! Ricky was the dark horse driver that I pulled for.
We were lucky enough to see races at Darlington (1), Kansas (3), Talledega (4), Iowa (2), and Bristol twice a year (16). We had a great time right up until the last few races. After the third Bristol Sunday race in a row got postponed until Monday because of rain, and we couldn’t stay due to work, we decided that our vacation money should be used for trips with more value and return on investment…
And that’s my novel about NASCAR!
View attachment 82315View attachment 82317