It's 9 in the morning, and they've already been drinking for two hours. Wearing bikinis of black-and-white racing flags (the women), oversized tank tops (the men), unfashionable-in-the-real-world race jackets (everyone), with (insert name of race car driver) T-shirts, hats, socks, holding (insert name of race car driver) koozies, talking (insert name of race car driver) talk. Their faces are a deep tan, topped with a pink hue. They're predominantly covered in some kind of facial hair, with back hair sometimes making a sneak appearance. Their accents are often Southern. Their beer is domestic. In the parking lot of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, the day of the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup, the necks were predominantly red.
We're tailgating, as any good sports fan would, which means grills dot the gravel parking lot, collapsible chairs and pickup beds are the seat of choice, breakfast drinks like screwdrivers and Bloody Marys are pouring down gullets, often slowly at first, to defeat last night's hangover. The smell of lighter fluid and charred meat fills the air, and beer flows from coolers, pouring out, quenching, uniting the masses in this holy race-car experience. It's a beautiful, blue-sky, 75-degree, picture-perfect day, and race fans are smiling. Talking to passersby. Cat-calling girls. Honking.
The driver of a purple semi drinks from a concoction of O'Douls and vodka. He's sitting in the parking lot, his truck hung with eight flags, all celebrating race cars or America. Every so often, he pulls the horn, and nearby revelers sing along with the familiar tune: "If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet!" Stomp, stomp! The singers, eight of them, have been drinking for hours. Half of them are wearing T-shirts, hats or jackets advertising their favorite driver, and they're making fun of the drunken truck driver and his flags.
It's all good-natured fun-making, but it delineates the strata among NASCAR fans—there are fans, and then there are fans. And, though they all get along to one another's faces ...
"Have you been over to Neckville?" one of the men asks me.
"'Neckville'? Is that the RV area?" I ask, inferring the red in Neckville.
"Yehhhhp."
It's a stereotype, of course, and not all NASCAR fans are rednecks. But, at least in this area of the parking lot, the beer-guzzlers can laugh at themselves and the distinct roots of the race. And they can also look down their noses. There are lines of acceptability, shades of overkill, as with all subcultures. Apparently, to the $80-a-ticket fans, driving across the country year-round to follow races, and then watching them while standing on the roof of a mobile home in a $2,000-plus area in the middle of the track crosses some of those lines.
These are the "NASCAR dads," a term penned by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake that refers to white males, 35 to 55, in blue-collar jobs. As more scrutiny has been applied to the term, newspaper reporters and political analysts have found that, by and large, this isn't such a swing-vote group. It's more of a no-vote group. Still, they're an interesting specimen.
Pete Petit drove here from Denver. He's a Jeff Gordon fan, as you can see by his hat, his flaming jacket and his T-shirt. His eys are shaded by pink-lensed glasses. He's holding a Miller High Life ("girly beer" or "cookin' beer" according to his friends). Pete, who's in his early 40s, "drives truck." Darrel Dusin is another member of Pete's party. It's his first NASCAR (though he's a big rodeo fan), and the race, to him, was an excuse to come out to Vegas from Greeley, Colorado. He's more muted in dress, wearing a collared golf shirt, drinking a Bud Light (a more acceptable choice than Miller, according to his friends) and smoking Bronco cigarettes. His skin has the same tan-and-pink color scheme.
"I'm designated driver," says a man with long brown hair and a beard, dressed in a silky blue button-up shirt and loose khaki pants. "So I'm drinking the least." "Least" must be NASCAR-ese for something other than restraint, as he seems to be keeping pace pretty well.
Still, it'll be hours before they hit the road again. At least three hours for the race, and then, when it's over, they've brought hamburgers to grill in the parking lot while they wait for traffic to die down.
The guys are waiting for the clock to strike 11 or so before heading to the track. The conversation focuses on the bratwurst they'd been grilling, the beer they'd consumed that morning (two cans shy of three-and-a-half cases), the horrors of the Port-O-Potties, the joys of NASCAR. I told them I just don't get it—not how the race works, but the mass appeal—and they're trying to help me out. ("She's not a guy," was, I believe, their first explanation.)
From what they tell me and what I observe, it's a combination of factors: the commonality of the spectators, the beautiful weather, the excuse to come to Vegas, beer, love of particular drivers, and the dangerous speed that could lead to a fiery crash. That's the real hope—injury-free, of course. But metal-crunching action is the NASCAR alpha and omega.
A loud horn honks. It's the semi-guy, leaning out, weight shifting toward his beer belly as he stands on the side of his cab, and screams, Chris Farley-style, "Go to the track!" So we do.
And on the way, we meet some friendly chatters. There's an old man, deep red skin and a mouth full of doublewide teeth, who trots along next to Pete. "I used to have that hat!" he belts out, smiling, teeth overflowing, accent thick with the South. "Think those are Bubba-teeth?" I quietly ask my friend Butch Lanning, a long-haired blonde with at least five earrings in each ear. I'm tagging along with him and his tailgating friends. He's not wearing any visible race-car gear and is one of the more fashionable people I see all day, in his button-up yellow shirt and loose-fitting jeans.
"No, these are rednecks," he says. "There are no fake teeth."
We walk past the T-shirt booths (with cute slogans like "Tits and Tires" and "Big Johnson Racing"), past the Dewalt booths, where lines have actually formed to sample the power tools, and up to security, where Butch has to abandon his beer before entering. He hands it to the security guard. "There's still some in here. Want to finish it?" the understanding guard asks. Butch chugs.
The pre-race show was a cacophony of oddity. First, the introductions of Sen. John Ensign (pronounced "in-sign") and then Rep. Jim Gibbons and Mayor Goodman, who presents the three local drivers a key to the city. "We in the city of Las Vegas, we treasure our city and we have a symbol to show how much we appreciate certain people when they make a contribution," he says. ("He also gave one to Michael Jackson," I point out, which garners some evil stares and something along the lines of "little pedophile … grrr ... should be shot.") To add to the testosterone, the ubiquitous Robin Leach, the emcee, jokes about Viagra advertising on the cars belonging to everyone but Las Vegans. "If you live in Vegas, you don't need Viagra," he chuckles. His British accent seems alarmingly out of place. Then two Sirens of T.I. sing "God Bless America," as a mini-car zooms around the track with oversized red dice in it. It all peaks with Robert Goulet singing the national anthem, which is met by cheers and waving hats.
Someone says a prayer about angels protecting the drivers, and thanking the NRA the good Lord and the military, and then:
"Start your engines."
It begins with a low growl. As the cars work their way up to speed (160 mph) the smell of tire and oil and gas and grit catch in your throat and make swallowing feel forced. The infectious vibrations seep through the crowd, murmuring in my heart, my fingertips, my reporter's notebook. The vehicles create a wind that blows the hair of everyone in the stands. Cars go so fast their colors practically disappear in a shiny smear of zoom. One pale guy (a rarity) holds up his cell phone, as a concertgoer might do, presumably so a faraway fan can hear the deafening sound. It's an interesting study for about 10 minutes, following the vehicles that look like zipper-line toy cars speeding in circles. Heads look left, then right.
Left, then right.
Left, right.
"Now what?" I try to ask Butch, but he can't hear me. So I write it down: "Does it bore you, with no crashes?"
"BORES EVERYONE!" he writes back, smiling, hoping for a casualty-free, non-injury-inducing, metal-crunching incident to amuse the stands, and remind them of the lurking danger that gives this race so much appeal.
But it doesn't lurk close enough to hold my attention. So, after an hour of crash-free entertainment, I wander up to the concessions area, where Le Dogs (hot dogs in French bread loaves) and lobster wraps and BBQ stands and bathrooms have developed looming lines. The shaded benches are filled with unhappy, tired-looking women and children, and buckets of four beers selling for $26 rest on manly potbellies. I overhear talk of bets and "getting whores." Women sing praises of tacky red-and-white Coors Light jackets and the men purchase and actually wear Reeses coats.
In the parking lot, where just hours earlier throngs of people sat, there's a welcome silence. Small cards with pictures of large-breasted women have been placed on windows, hoping to snag people with promises of two girls for $79 or three for $99. Their phones will no doubt start ringing when the 400-mile, three-and-a-half-hour race is through.
I walk to my car and start winding through the lot, onto the flowing freeway, enjoying the quick drive home, savoring my own ability to drive fast.
The fans who have spent hours in the stands drinking in speed incarnate will have a different experience when they begin their journey. They drove slowly, stuck in traffic, to get here and watch cars drive fast, and will have to drive slowly, stuck in traffic, to get back home. I guess I still don't get it. I don't drive any faster than usual. There's no new appreciation for acceleration. In fact, a pebble somehow flies in my window and pelts me on the cheek and I consider the potential pain and danger of normal, everyday driving. I glance in the rearview mirror almost obsessively, watching for bruising and thankful that it didn't hit my eye. I'm guarded, cautious, not terribly drawn to speed or sausage or domestic beer or danger or pain. Is it really any wonder that I don't get NASCAR?