Turning Up The Awesome at NASCAR

Going fast and turning left with the most loyal fans in sports 

NASCAR gets a bad rap from those who don’t truly know the sport (like this guy). They call it boring, overly time-consuming and just a smidgeon on the redneck side. But, to be fair, it’s a lot more than just all of those things. At this Sunday’s Go-Fast!Turn-Left! race at the California Motor Speedway or whatever they call it, I learned that it’s also a wee bit toasty (90-some-odd degrees in the California desert), a tad crowded (90-some-odd-thousand diehards) and a touch loud. It’s also pretty damn entertaining…once, anyway. 

If we were staging a caption contest, it would be held 

under this photo and go something like: "Can I take 

your picture? My golf buddies will never believe this."

Until Sunday, I was a Go-Fast!Turn-Left! virgin. I had no “Cobalt Tools” T-shirt, no #48 Jimmie Johnson jersey, and—surprisingly enough—no tramp stamp tattoo of Dale Earnhardt’s “3” on my lower back. Hell, I didn’t even own cut-off jean shorts. (Yeah, baby, JORTS!) And, unlike one patron, I don't have a T-shirt that says:

“Guess who needs a beer?"

Imagine a drawing of two thumbs, pointing at his own chest, followed by the words: 

“This guy!”

Yep, that guy needed a beer.

The two-hour transformation from golfer to stock car fan.  

What I do have is a newfound appreciation for just how fast an object looks when it's going 170 m.p.h. without wings attached to it. It's also difficult to describe how loud 40-something stock cars sound as the green flag drops and they make their first two laps around a two-mile oval. The first two laps, when the cars are most closely bunched, is unlike anything I had seen before. Early on, I found myself laughing out loud (that's "LOLing" for you younger readers) at how fast the cars were in person. I tried to capture it in the video at the bottom, but I’m not sure it does it justice. The force of the cars leaves you standing there saying, “Holy sh…!” to the people beside you. (And no, it's not that I’m afraid to swear on my own blog, it’s just that the cars are so loud, no one can hear you finish your thought.) 

If you touch this car when it's hot outside, you'll get chocolate all over your fingers. 

As the pace car led the race cars around the track in advance of the start, the track announcer promised that, "The drivers of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series were ready to do what they do every Sunday for you folks: TURN UP THE AWESOME!” 
(Go ahead and comprehend what that sounds like out loud for a second...OK, good to go?)

And turn up the awesome, they did. Those opening laps were as much awesome as I’ve seen anyone turn up in a long while. And I’ve seen my fair share of awesome turned up. I mean these drivers fully turned up the awesome. Starting all the way from “not really all that awesome” to “kind of cool, but not yet reaching awesome status” to “medium awesome” and clear on past “pretty awesome” to “full-throttle awesome” and even knocking on the door of "downright ridiculously awesome." Alright, I think we’re done here.

In addition to the obvious wardrobe/people watching, a NASCAR race also offers hours of time to sit and pontificate to yourself (because it’s too loud to actually converse with anyone around you without hand signals) on things like: 

Does it take longer for the McDonald’s car to make a pit stop because he's waiting for his value meal and for the chocolate shake-induced brain freeze to wear off? 

Why is the Extenze car going so slowly? And is this the only time anyone powered by Extenze has rooting for a faster “finish”? 

If you stood on the straightaway and timed your jump perfectly, do you think the car would go right under you? (Naturally, some of this pontificating happens after additional Coors Lights.)

Crew members push Joey Logano's car into the start lineup. Logano's 
website says he was born in 1990. So he's 20 years old and he 

has been racing for 16 years. And this is legal how? 

One thing is for certain: Go-Fast!Turn-Left! knows its target audience, and they have their act dialed in. Touring the pits and the garage area before the race, it’s obvious that the sport is tailored toward creating a memorable experience for the fans. By offering pre-race access to the pits and garage areas for the fortunate fans who “know someone,” NASCAR is able to capture the interest of even a casual fan who knows nothing about what cars can and cannot pass the pace car to get back on the lead lap during a caution (yeah, that one stumped me). Crews literally walk among the crowd up until an hour before the race begins.

Celebrities, man! Tell me about the celebrities!

The hat I was bullied into purchasing.

4th of July headwear for the rest of my life.

Alright, alright. Settle down. Sorry to disappoint, but I didn’t see any LA celebs. Wait! I take that back. While strolling through the garage area an hour before the “Gentlemen start your engines” moment and the flyover (always a winner), I nearly walked into today’s greatest commercial television actor. I am speaking, of course, of the one and only Aflac Duck. (You thought it was the Geiko gecko, didn’t you? Too hot for geckos in the desert, man. Get serious. A gecko…I mean come on.)

Getting all TMZ on the Aflac Duck.
It's a rock star life this mallard leads.  

I’m not sure how many Aflac ducks are enjoying what must be a truly liberating life as a marketing mascot, but I will say this: As mallards go, this was one handsome, debonair and dashing duck. The No. 99 Carl Edwards Aflac car didn’t get the victory on Sunday, but the good folks at Aflac have to feel like winners anyway. After all, nobody in a tank top and jean shorts tried to cook their mascot and stash him inside the trailer until Christmas dinner. 
I'm no southern chef or NASCAR track announcer, but in racing parlance I believe that would involve preheating the awesome to about 375 degrees, then waiting for roughly three hours--or until your awesome is good and crispy but still tender on the inside. Drive on.