|
the good, the bad, and the ugly of NASCAR |
<< HomeHave New Articles E-Mailed To You!
How Bad Have You Got It?....NASCAR Fever!!!
Friday, July 21, 2006
For our first blog entry, we'd like to tell you all our story, just so you understand us a little bit! Who would have ever thought a little over four years ago that we would be such huge NASCAR fans? Yes, four years ago we were "those people" who just didn't understand the sport. We thought it was sooooo boring, that is, until we opened up our minds and thought-let's give it a chance!
To start an interest in this sport, one needs to enter with an open mind. I guess that is why it took us so long to decide to watch. We are from TEXAS, where football is king. We all pretty much thought that it was the ONLY sport to watch. That is, until we took a chance, expanded our horizons, and sat down and watched our first NASCAR race. Our first race watched was not all together, not at the same time. Week after week, race after race, we found ourselves actually enjoying the sport. Our attitude before this was "come on, cars going in a circle? that is just not for me." Now, we are season ticket holders at Texas Motor Speedway.
We've come far the last four years and have found a sport that has helped our friendships get closer, helped create other friendships, and most of all, allowed us to add a few more special memories in our life story. Our first race to attend was the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 at TMS in April of 2004. We only attended the Sunday race, we didn't come for the whole weekend, we stayed in a hotel (that is a no-no for us now), and by golly we honestly didn't know what to expect. After that weekend, after seeing how special the sport was, seeing the "sea" of RV's and tents, the ability to walk up to complete strangers and strike up a conversation, we knew that we were now part of something so special. Something that brings you back to your true roots, where your from, who you are. A place where God, family, and friendships mean something. Now, many races later, we still get a chill when we walk up and hear the cars go around for the first time. It is music to our ears!
So, after that first dismal (yet it satisfied us at the time) race experience, we made plans to camp from then on out, enjoy the weekend AT the track, not at a hotel 20 miles away. We wanted to be part of it, in every sense. In the pits, up close, where we could see the action first hand, understand it just a little bit better.
NASCAR is a lot like reading. You don't get anything out of it unless you understand it! So, being the cool chicks we are, we never hesitate to ask people questions about the tracks, certain drivers, cars, etc., no matter how embarrassing it may be. In the garage at Texas, we asked the 8 crew some questions-yes, they probably thought we were crazy, but hey, we want to know! We want to get to a place where we feel we truly understand all aspects of the sport. From not knowing anything about the sport, who the drivers were, why they did this and that, we now know all of these things, which makes us understand it-the strategies aka game plans. Now, when people make comments about how they don't understand how we can sit and watch NASCAR every week, we simply put it on their TEXAN terms-imagine 43 football teams hashing it out on a football field where there can only be one winner. That describes NASCAR and the thrill of it all. 43 teams chasing each other for the win. Notice we said team, not driver or car. Every team has a 1/43 chance of winning or a little over 2 %. That is why it is so thrilling. You learn your favorites, your least favorites, and suddenly with all of the competition, you get hooked into it all!
What we like about NASCAR is how friendly and down home everybody in the sport is-drivers, crews, and fans. You can walk into a restaurant or grocery store, the mall, and if you see someone with a certain driver's shirt on, a shirt that has a track on it, you are guaranteed to be able to walk up to that person and start talking, chit chatting about who you like or what did you think of this race, etc. You have a common bond-NASCAR and all that it stands for. From being such "wet behind the ears, bandwagon" fans, we've come a long way, baby!!! We are now experienced fans, somewhat knowledgeable about the sport. NASCAR races have now taken over our TV's on Sundays instead of the NFL. We've had tons of fun so far with this sport and we hope we always feel this way about it.
We've had so many great experiences/opportunities over the past few years.....experiences fans would love to get. We are LUCKY! We've we were on NASCAR 360 (Jamie McMurray signing the cowboy hats!), we were picked to do the Good Morning America shoot at TMS and open the show by saying "Good Morning America from Texas Motor Speedway!", we've met crews and hung out with them, we've gotten LOTS of great autographs on our traveling cowboy hats, to getting beer from Sterling Marlin, helping the SPEED guys take Texas Terry to his motor coach after Trackside, we've drank actual moonshine from Junior Johnson, meeting Elliott Sadler and his friends, gosh, we've had so many more fun things happen to us.....and we hope it continues. We've also met very special people who will be friends for life because of NASCAR. We love this sport and are so thankful we have it and that it stands for things we believe. Till Sunday......gee, we wonder what will happen, who will throw a temper tantrum, who will win. The thrill of it all................
1:32 PM Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home
Archives: