This weekend, my family went to its first NASCAR race at the Dover International Speedway in Delaware. Upon entering the grounds, we were greeted by 200,000 people, the majority of whom were wearing things that they probably shouldn't. Interspersed amongst the sea of shirtless men with beer bellies and hiking boots was the occasional female, dressed in a half shirt or American flag bikini top and pair of cut-off jeans with a small hole cut strategically out of the back pocket to reveal a glossy butt cheek.
I didn't have as much time to observe my fellow race fans as I would have liked, given that I spent the morning in a corporate tent inside the 'hospitality village.' While my husband made small talk with business associates, I conversed with people who were much more appropriately dressed for a day at the racetrack than their counterparts on the outside. All of the men in tent were wearing some variation on the Dockers pleated pant; most of the women wore sundresses and kitten heels.
I was unsure of where exactly I fit in amongst the two groups of race fans, so appealed to them both by wearing a skirt that could be adjusted at any given moment to reveal or obscure my rub-on tramp stamp.
Outside the village, race fans were treated to live music, impromptu wrestling matches and free samples of chewing tobacco and sour cream & onion chips. One of the positives of being cloistered inside a tent all day, I reasoned, was that I would be fed some good food, which in this case, turned out to be a medley of roasted vegetables and a small hamster, whose proper name, I learned, was chicken cordon bleu.
My kids and I spent the meal pushing our food around our plates and gazing longingly at the commoners on the other side of the fence. They were consuming pulled pork sandwiches and funnel cakes just to spite us.
"You want a corn dog, don't you?" asked my husband.
"No," I replied tartly. "I want to visit the carving station again."
Shortly after my remark, my ungrateful self and my three equally ungrateful children were escorted from the village and plopped in front of a white van that served barbecue ribs out of its back end. With our bellies full of hush puppies and cotton candy, we sat down to witness one of the most unexpectedly cool things on this planet: a live NASCAR race. In all seriousness, it was incredible. I think I'm in LOVE....so in love, in fact, that I'm on the hunt for a half shirt and pair of Daisy Dukes of my own.
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Have you ever been to a NASCAR race? Do tell!
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