Haul A** and Turn Left (6 page)

explaining four straight victories at Talladega

“Safety is a moving target.”

—JEFF BURTON

W
hen NASCAR officials failed to throw a red flag—which would have brought the race to a temporary halt and improved the chance of a full-speed finish—at the end of the 2002 Pepsi 400 at Daytona, backstretch fans responded by hurling thousands of pieces of debris—programs, beer cans, plastic cups, and the like—onto the track while the cars slowly completed the final few laps.

Michael Waltrip mistakenly thought the fans were saluting his victory.

“Nothing has changed, but yet this year is totally different.”

—BOBBY LABONTE

“I make a habit of getting myself in trouble. When I don’t self-inflict the wounds, they come to me anyway.”

—TONY STEWART

E
ight cars in the 2002 Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway carried paint schemes devoted to the Muppets. Sponsors planned to have entertainers in Muppets costumes touring the grounds on race day, that is, until the speedway’s president at the time, Joie Chitwood III, decreed that any Muppets showing up on the property would be arrested.

Apparently Chitwood felt that the speedway should be paid for allowing Muppets at the track.

Even in an age of security concerns, few people anticipated a day when someone could go to jail for “aiding and abetting a Muppet.”

A
fter a 2002 race in Bristol, Tennessee, a female fan claimed Tony Stewart pushed her out of his way. When a local sheriff got wind of it, he sent five deputies to Richmond, Virginia (the next race), to investigate the case and brought Stewart before a grand jury to face potential assault charges.

Yes, the sheriff was running for reelection at the time.

“If you pass after the caution flag, you’re suscepting yourself to a penalty.”

—RYAN NEWMAN

“You hit the wall head-on; it hurts … Some of the younger guys haven’t experienced at yet”

—JOE NEMECHEK

“Yeah, it’s a big track, and it’s actually easier to drive around than Daytona. At Daytona, you actually have to drive a little bit. Here it feels like it’s 99 percent car. Like in the old days when they sent a chimp up to fly a rocket around the world. I feel like the chimp. I’m sitting in a really good car that was prepared by really good people with a good engine.”

—BORIS SAID

on Talladega Superspeedway

“I don’t claim to have any answers or know the answers. We pay good money for good people to come in and build these things, but I can tell you when it don’t run, and I can tell you when it does run, and that’s my job and I’ve tried to do it.”

—DALE EARNHARDT JR.

R
ace fans are particularly susceptible to bad weather simply because so many of them camp out at and near the tracks.

In the wee hours of April 30, 2005, a storm that was almost biblical in nature ripped through the grounds of Talladega Superspeedway. That fans endured it is perhaps the greatest testimony to their persistence and loyalty to the sport.

Tents flooded. Red-clay pools overran the bottomlands. The high ground at Gettysburg was no more crucial than in the sprawling lots of Talladega, where shirtless fans emerged to play tackle football in the muck. Then they donned T-shirts that made them vaguely presentable, loaded their coolers with frosty beverages, and made the slow march to the track, where they got rained on some more and kept their chins up, hoping to see a Busch Series race. Then they sat in the rain some more, finally watching a race that ended in virtual darkness.

Early in the morning, track president Grant Lynch ha reported there were no weather-related injuries among the fans, although that may have changed had he waited for the muddy football games to commence.

A press release issued the week before the race had quoted Nextel Cup crew chief Greg Steadman as follows: “Outside of when it is actually falling and you are sitting around waiting to get on the track, rain just doesn’t affect Talladega.”

Tell that to the fans.

N
ASCAR fans are sensitive to the criticism that they go to the races for the crashes. They read stories in which someone who’s never been to a race preaches about how race fans just go to see wrecks. And … the point is?

What’s the big deal? Don’t people go to football games to see hits? Don’t they go to baseball games to see home runs? It’s not rational. It’s just something that attracts us.

It’s more complicated than what the sport’s detractors claim. The great majority of race fans are responsible, law-abiding citizens, and they certainly don’t want to see people get hurt or killed. If you’ve ever been at a track when a serious crash occurred and you’ve watched the reaction in the grandstands while waiting for the driver to climb out of his mangled automobile, then you know that fans don’t want to see someone hurt.

They don’t want to see death. They want to see death defied. They don’t want to see injury. They want to see injury defied.

Man, d’you see that? How’d that fool walk away from that wreck? Climb outta that? You can’t even tell it was a car! Unbelievable, man. I gotta see me some more of this.

It’s what we are. It’s how we live. It’s what we do. We want to see death defied. It’s one of the reasons we go to the movies, buy popcorn, and sit right up front, munching away and drawing Coca-Cola through a straw, while spaceships and airplanes and robots and extraterrestrials blow things and one another up.

The movies aren’t real, you say? Well, just what is the difference, in terms of the spectacle and what’s being processed by all those synapses and neurons, between live and Memorex?

Racing is exciting. Spectacular passes are exciting. Wrecks are exciting.

Why do we go to amusement parks, jump out of airplanes and pull the cord, drive too fast, and go on vacation? It’s to get relief from the monotony of human existence. It’s to escape the mundane existence. A man can’t pay bills and read e-mail and leave messages that won’t get returned forever. He’s got to get away.

He’s got to go to Talladega, sip some cool ones, and get off his duff and yell, “Hoody-hoo!” every time Junior zips by.

If he didn’t have the occasional Talladega, the stray Bristol, and the two weeks of Charlotte, no telling into what mischief he might tumble.

So let him watch his race and stop psychoanalyzing everything.

“I really ain't doing much, just turning left every once in a while.”

—DALE EARNHARDT JR.

HAUL A** AND TURN LEFT

Tune up your favorite Chevy and get ready to haul a**! Ride along as veteran NASCAR reporter Monte Dutton offers a collection of asphalt-tearing quotes, anecdotes, and aphorisms straight from the mouths of the world's most famous drivers, racing personalities, and amateur philosophers who live life at 130 miles per hour. Featuring undercarriage-baring reflections on everything that goes through your head as you're zooming into victory lane, this fully illustrated book captures the checkered flag with such witticisms as:

“When I saw the wall coming through the car, I knew I was in trouble.”

—Busch Series driver Mike Harmon

“Lowe's Motor Speedway is one of those tracks where the sun usually sets in the west.”

—Motor Racing Network's Barney Hall

“We had the wrong gear, wrong springs, wrong shocks, and wrong car. We had the right beer, but other than that, we got stomped.”

—Sterling Martin, sponsored by Coors Light