NASCAR: The Second Biggest American Sport

Never in my life did I imagine I would become a NASCAR fan! I never knew the names of the drivers, I never knew when it was aired on TV, and I barely knew it existed. Then four years ago I moved to the "Dirty South". I live in the backwoods on the Florida side of the Georgia State Line. NASCAR is big here! NASCAR is huge here! People have shrines of drivers who have died in their homes. Drivers like Dale Earnhardt and Davey Allison. They have memorials on their cars and trucks, and they have their favorite driver's number on their vehicles, homes, and clothing.

My husband isn't a die hard fan, but when we're home on Sundays he will "couch potato" it while he watches the race. At this moment I'm writing this article while the "Talladega" race keeps causing me to pause to see where Matt Kinseth, car number seventeen, is. Yep, I'm a fan. I don't live by it, and like my husband I would rather be fishing or on a motorcycle ride, but on a rainy day like today, watching NASCAR is fun and exciting.

Talladega (Alabama) has the fastest, widest track. The grand stand is a mile long and every seat is filled at anywhere from $50 to $200 per seat. In the center of the track are the total die hard fans. They purchase a camp site and it looks a lot like a big trailer park right there as the cars circle around them. Many of these fans follow the race for the entire season from start (mid February in Daytona, Florida) to finish (mid November in Homestead, Florida). In between they are following the drivers across the country from Florida to California, and Michigan to Arizona. Talladega is one of the most popular races because the cars can get up to 220mph with five cars across the width of the race track. An easy track to drive with few accidents, but when one car wipes out, there can be up to fifteen affected by that one driver and all of them can be thrust out of the race. With 43 cars in the race, three big wipeouts can almost clear the track.