Free Haul A** and Turn Left by Monte Dutton

INTRODUCTION
    N o matter how much their sport grows, NASCAR fans feel a bit put upon by those who do not share the passion. Mike Watt, a fan from Edmonton, Alberta, says, “If you come to one of these races and don’t have any idea what the big deal is, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to explain it to you.”
    NASCAR fans dismiss most of the rest of the mainstream sports as “stick-and-ball sports.” It’s a mild term of derision, this idea that Barry Bonds, Shaq, Peyton Manning and all the rest are occupying themselves with little boys’ sports. Racers, on the other hand, are, to their fans, the righteous icons of the Great American Love Affair with the Automobile. Surrounded by steel, fuel, and rubber, they are the last true folk heroes in the eyes of their fans, who refer to them by their first names—Dale, Tony, Jeff, Mark, Rusty, and Mikey—and place them either on a pedestal or in a Dumpster, depending on where the allegiances fall.
    Rick Larouse travels to the Nextel Cup race in Las Vegas every year from his home in the Canadian province of Alberta. What keeps him coming back? “The atmosphere,” he says firmly, “and the character of the drivers. I like a man who calls it the way he sees it. I see that more in some of the veteran drivers, the ones who have been around. Some of the young drivers seem kind of plastic to me, but I’d be the first to admit that part of that’s probably the fact that I don’t know ’em as well.
    “Don’t matter who you are, though. It takes guts to drive a race car. Every one of ’em’s a cut above the average Joe, if you ask me.”
    It’s not a cult anymore, not even in western Canada. The average attendance at a Nextel Cup race is over 150,000. The TV ratings are second only to the National—buh-buh-buh-BUH!—Football League. The snobs can look down their noses if they want, it being a free country, but the gearheads with the “3” stickers in the back windows of their pickup trucks have earned the last laugh. The NASCAR army now regularly descends on virtually every outpost, great and small, and completely overruns it. For two weekends a year, even trendy Los Angeles cowers in the wake of the legions of fans who arrive from the heartland, wielding their beer coolers and charcoal grills as if they were weapons.
    “What I love about NASCAR is the diversity,” says Mo Curry, a fan from Philipsburg, Montana. “The diversity of the people is amazing. Let me explain what I mean by that. My husband and I towed our little camper down here [Las Vegas] from home. When we got here, we backed it in right next to a big motor coach that cost $200,000 if it cost a dime.”
    “America is built on wheels,” adds her husband, Bo. “You know why more and more people are getting into NASCAR? You can relate. Everybody drives a car, and everybody wishes he could get in a race car and go fast.”
    Even as they rejoice, though, they feel a bit resented and underappreciated. Invariably, the major metropolitan dailies arrive on the scene with one of either two stories in mind. Either it’s “the cultural phenomenon of the NASCAR dads,” a term that happened along at least a decade after it became relevant, or “let’s hang out in the infield with all the Bubbas.” The latter is an easy story to write, stock car fans being good-humored sorts who will even laugh along when they are being ridiculed. Don’t think they don’t know what’s happening, though. They know it’s open season on Bubbas in Chicago, Frisco, and LA. They know other groups in this country are practically immune to such satirical fire. They can take a joke, though, and that’s a good thing.
    “Who cares what people think? This is the biggest carnival on earth,” says Bo Curry. “Unless you attend one of these things, you’ve got no idea what you’re missing. The race is cool, but look at this midway. Look at all the souvenir trailers. You can spend all day out here, just watching the