Daniel S. Pierce - Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France

In the Beginning There Was Bristol

I grew up within earshot of the Asheville Speedwayor New Asheville as it was generally called in my childhood yearsthe local bastion of stock car racing. Like most Ashevillians who were not race fans, I considered the Friday night races noisy nuisances and the people who frequented the track rednecks. My opinion of racing and race fans did not change appreciably over the years, not even when my potluck roommate at Western Carolina University and soon-to-be best friend, Don Good, turned out to be a die-hard stock car racing fan whose fondest memories were of weekends spent camping with his truck driver father, Wayne, in the infield of the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Indeed, I doubt whether I ever saw more than a few minutes of a televised race, and I knew little about the sport other than having a passing knowledge of the on-track exploits of Richard Petty (I did grow up in North Carolina) and Darrell Waltrip (I happened to be teaching school in a town near Waltrips Franklin, Tennessee, home when he was winning championships in Junior Johnsons car in the 1980s).

All of that changed on August 27, 1994, when Don, now a college professor and administrator, convinced me to go with him to the night Winston Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. As a southern historianand also as an individual in his late thirties who had quit trying to run from his redneck rootsI felt I owed it to myself to see at least one race, so I agreed to go. Unbeknownst to me, the race Don had invited me to attend was, and still is, generally considered the most exciting race on the NASCAR circuit and the toughest ticket to acquire. It is hard to describe what I encountered on that August night. I was astounded by the sight of all the souvenir trailers around the track and the obvious loyalty of the fans, almost all attired in colorful T-shirts and hats announcing their allegiance to a favorite driver. The strange mixture of smells was equally overwhelming: an olio of carnival food, sweat, exhaust fumes, burning rubber, and high-octane gasoline.

At the time, the track held 70,000 or so fans, and it was jammed; even the grassy bank at the exit of the fourth turn was full of folks sitting on blankets. I lost count at more than one hundred as we climbed the seemingly innumerable steps of the new aluminum grandstand on the backstretch near the entrance to turn three. The rows of brightly colored team race car haulerspainted to match the paint job on the carsparked in the infield added to the carnival scene. As the race neared, my anticipation grew when the crowd rose and a pastor delivered an invocation. After the invocation, Lee Greenwood sang God Bless the U.S.A.I cannot count the number of races I have been to where Greenwood sang this songand the national anthem, and the fans roared their approval of an earsplitting flyover of air force jets in tight formation. The excitement of the fans intensified as the cars lined up on pit road and someone gave the command Gentlemen, start your engines. I did not anticipate how loud the cars would be; in fact, I could barely communicate with Don over the unmuffled roar of the engines. The pace car pulled out onto the track followed by the brightly colored race cars, waxed to a high sheen to reflect the track lights. Seemingly all 70,000 fans inside the track rose to their feet in anticipation of the green flag.

When the green flag flew, the decibel level jumped tenfold. I had never heard anything like this assault on my eardrums in my life. Now I understood why people around me were wearing earplugs. Bristol Motor Speedway is a particularly loud facility, as the grandstands completely enclose the .533-mile track, which in turn sits in a bowl in the surrounding hills. You could literally feel the sound. After 5 lapsof a total 500I knew I would never last the race without earplugs. Fortunately, the ends of the strap that I had on my sunglasses fit into my ears perfectly and muffled the sound. When I later asked Don why he did not warn me about the intense noise, he told me that he believed you had not really been to the races unless your ears rang for two or three days afterward. I will say I have chosen to forgo that particular racing pleasure.