As a native Floridian, many are surprised to hear that I am neither a fan of nor am I knowledgeable about anything NASCAR related. I know the entire franchise involves fast cars and the south, but that’s about it. Therefore, when my Americana class, a course focused on American culture and “What makes America, America?” revealed that one of our field studies would be to the Daytona 300 NASCAR race, I was unmoved. Although I was slightly curious about what one might witness at a NASCAR race, there was another part of me that really didn’t want to dedicate my entire Saturday to this event. Regardless, it happened, and although it was interesting to go, it certainly isn’t something I plan on venturing back to in the future.
The only experience I had previously held with NASCAR was watching "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" over 50 times in my lifetime. That being said, I expected NASCAR to be filled with stereotypical rednecks, shameless sponsoring and enough unhealthy food to satisfy a lifetime of cravings. I wasn’t wrong.
Approaching the arena, my bus spotted an awfully high number of shirtless, overweight men standing with beers in their hands and sunburn slowly spreading at the top of their shoulders. The amount of camouflage T-shirts and hats present was at an all-time high, not to mention the presence of jean cut-off shorts.
With this in mind, I was surprised to see that there was the slightest amount of diversity at the Daytona 300. I expected this to be a solely white sport (yes, I only recently learned that NASCAR is indeed a sport). So while the population was predominately white and male, there were families of different backgrounds present at the race. Although it was nice to see such a southern sport attracting families of different backgrounds, I was later told that the Daytona races aren’t nearly “as bad” in regards to racism as different venues. Fans have historically been known to show their pride in the Confederate Flag accompanied with the over-usage of the well-known excuse, “Heritage not hate.” While my class was lucky enough to avoid any of those comments at the race, it’s still present in modern NASCAR races throughout the south. I will not bring up the extreme lack of diversity in racecar drivers themselves, but know that it’s there.
Another interesting fact was that they all stopped to give a nondenominational prayer before the race. While it’s not really surprising when you think about it, given that the majority of NASCAR fans are, as I mentioned earlier, southern and white. Therefore, it makes sense that the majority of them would be Christian, but I will say it was a little strange standing as an audience of thousands and thanking God for His ability to create racecars. I suppose I’m just used to many major sports not being so blatant in an expression of religious belief, but if worship it going to happen anywhere, it’s probably going to be NASCAR.
I was exposed to many different types of people when attending my first NASCAR race, many that I didn’t care too much about meeting. While it was slightly interesting to attend, I have to say that sitting and waiting for cars to go around a track 120 times is not the most thrilling experience.
