It’s the truth all right: NASCAR fans are devoted. Not just to professional motor sports, nor only to trucks and stock cars, but also to the individual drivers themselves—the Jeff Gordons and Dale Earnhardt Jrs. and Brendan Gaughans.
The latter of whom, a Las Vegas man, drives the No. 77 Chevrolet Silverado truck for South Point Racing, the only NASCAR team in Las Vegas. In 2002, he was named NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series rookie of the year, and twice now he has been awarded “most popular driver,” with banners hanging overhead in the shop to prove it. Tomorrow, it will be Saturday, September 22, and Gaughan will place 30th at the Smith’s Las Vegas 350 NASCAR truck race at the Speedway, suffering tire failures and a crash, but that is of no matter tonight.
His fans are devoted. They—men, women and children—come in masses to the South Point shop, next to the Las Vegas Speedway, to take advantage of the open house prior to the race; an opportunity for the local fans to step inside the mythical world of NASCAR that they themselves have mythicized by means of their fandom, ferocious and devoted. And they meet Gaughan himself, sitting amongst the crowd with a president’s pizzazz, signing photos, taking pictures, kissing children and babies.
And he returns the devotion, in the form of trust. Gaughan and his team, a very loyal crew, open up the entire shop—a well-lit warehouse with celestial roofs and racing paraphernalia everywhere—for all to access, at their own leisure. The locker room, the mechanic’s shop, the truck in which Gaughan will race tomorrow: It’s all available for fans to see, touch, feel, smell, take pictures of, marvel at—without supervision.
And also in the form of free food: barbecued chicken, ribs, potato salad, corn on the cob, beans and biscuits—plates and plates of food cooked right there outside the shop, with Pepsis and bottled waters to wash it down and ice cream bars for desert.
So that’s what fans do tonight: They met Gaughan, explore the shop, eat the good food, talk NASCAR all the while, and never once betray the trust or gratuity shown them in return for their ardent and unflagging devotion.