First Time at NASCAR

Last weekend, I took the family to the races. Every March, NASCAR rolls into town and since my son is a diehard fan of the Pixar Cars franchise, I thought I’d do whatever I could to get us there.

As a kid, my dad got me a game called “Bill Elliot’s NASCAR Challenge. It was very lame, but it did educate me on all facets of NASCAR racing. And since then, I kind of just brushed it off as a sport not for me.

I called up a friend of mine who owns a wrecking yard, and I asked him if he knew someone who could hook up some tickets. He said “Yes. Me!” So it was on like Donkey Kong.

We meet up ahead of the race, and my son could hear the engines from well outside of the track. As he stimmed each time we heard revving, we kept getting closer and closer until we enter.

My wife was hungry and so we went by the concessions to get food and a beer for me. As I walked around, I saw nothing but friendly people. People who would say hi to us for no reason. We made our way to our seats and it wasn’t long before they cars were starting their engines for the start of the race.

We sat in awe of how loud (he was wearing hearing protection of course) it was and how fast they started going. It was not sold out, so we sat conveniently near the bathroom and halfway down the grandstands instead of our assigned seats.

After 81 laps, my son started getting tired, and so we headed for the exit. My friend who got us the tickets said it was so awesome to watch my son get super excited at his first race. I told him that because of him, my son is going to remember this forever.

As we walked to the car, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on cloud 9. Yeah, we left early, but my son got his fill. My wife was happy to go home because we were beat up by the son and our faces peeled a few days later.

In spite of the current political climate, I still thought it was an amazing experience. And not a single red hat was seen anywhere. I actually thought what would happen if someone of that “side” were to start some to big with us, but none of that happened. At all.

I saw that the political divide could be closed. I’m sure more than half of the people we saw at the race voted for the way things are currently, and I’m sure a lot of them aren’t happy about it. But it was not the time nor the place. We left wondering what has to happen for everyone to be happy, and also, we left with the gratitude for such an awesome experience.

And fuck bigots.