Page 21 - March 2023 Issue

green flag. We acquired a satellite dish
that same year and so I started tuning in
each chance I was able.

So it went for the next several years. I
attended every Dover race I could. I took
pictures at dealerships all over Delmarva
where there were NASCAR show cars on
display those weeks. I called time-out
while umpiring Ridgely Little League
games because the haulers, especially
those of Sterling Marlin's team, some-
times used Maryland Route 480 through
town to get to Delaware. I fi gured out
which roads were more frequently used
for the tractor trailers to get to and leave
Dover and set up a lawn chair to wave,
boo, photograph, or gesture rudely at
each that passed. I was not the only one:
I swear the entire population of Barclay
and Sudlersville were in on that "secret"
racing rendezvous.
Another fast forward to 2001, when I
made my first trip to Tennessee. My
destination was the Gatlinburg area
off of I-40, but I became giddy when
I looked at the map and realized I-81
on the way to Dolly Parton's stomping
grounds sent me through Bristol. It was situation presented itself. So now for able to make the rescheduled event. It
Christmastime and the speedway there a chronological top ten on the march worked out perfectly.
was holding a nightly promotion called to completing visits to every single
"Fantasy in Lights" that took visitors on NASCAR track ever: I stopped by Talladega for the fi rst time

a self-driven holiday decorations tour in 2009. The gates were closed but not
around the grounds. I assumed attend- I was vacationing in Nashville over the locked. I am reasonably certain the stat-
ees would just be directed through the holidays in 2006. Literally [and prop- ute of limitations has expired, but not
parking lots but was mightily impressed erly], nothing touristy was open on wanting to incriminate myself, all I will
when the route took the procession Christmas Day so I made the trek to say is I have some really good pictures
down the adjacent drag strip, only to be the distant suburb of Lebanon to survey of a certain Alabama superspeedway.
outdone when we were funneled up to the superspeedway there. It was a Busch A decision was made to visit all the race
the "coliseum" gates -- and then waved Series venue then but is now being used shops in the Charlotte area in 2010.
ONTO THE RACETRACK ITSELF! as a Cup track. Lebanon, by the way, I had been by the track there before
Obviously no one was allowed to go up is where the Cracker Barrel restaurant but never inside. To my surprise and
the banking (I saluted the minivan that chain began and is headquartered today. delight, there was something called
feigned a try for a half-second) as the It's also home to Cumberland College, the Summer Shootout held there each
cars are almost literally sideways thanks to whom Georgia Tech administered a Wednesday and I had timed it just right.
to centrifugal force during actual races 222-0 gridiron beatdown in 1916.
Several hours worth of Legends cars and
but it was pretty darn cool nonetheless
The spring night race at Richmond was Bandoleros culminated with school bus

and easily the highlight of the trip.
rained out and postponed to the follow- races featuring local weathermen at the
While the death of Dale Earnhardt put ing day in 2007. I had just fi nished grad- helm. It was as hilarious as it sounds.
a damper on the rest of that year and a uate school, and still riding that high, There are pictures to prove I ate dinner

number of questionable decisions by woke up and immediately decided I was with Danica Patrick in 2011 when she
NASCAR incrementally decreased the going to drive to Virginia to see the event was just starting out in the Nationwide
Southern flavor and alpha-male compet- in person. I got there ten minutes before Series. Best of all, it was at a Buffalo

itiveness of the sport in the seasons the green flag, parked right outside the Wild Wings.
since, I have never missed a chance to track, and bought tickets for pennies
see a race or to tour a track when the on the dollar from people who were not (continued on next page)
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