NASCAR Nation: One journalist's journey of discovery

Your first impression of Talladega speedway is of sheer size. The track is an approximate oval, with grandstands at both the long sides. Seen from one grandstand, the opposite one seems to shimmer in the misty distance. It is in fact only three-fifths of a mile away, but appears farther because of the haze generated by huge quantities of traffic all around, and by barbecue grills on the infield. Oh, the infield -- I had better explain about the Talladega infield.

The infield -- 212 acres at Talladega -- is the interior of the oval. You get to it by driving through one of three tunnels under the track. Much of the infield is taken up with maintenance areas, garages, administrative buildings, and access roads, but the remainder -- around 120 acres -- is available to fans. And here they are, the hard core of stock-car-racing fandom. And here are their vehicles: Your second impression of the speedway is that you have never in your life seen so many RVs (that is, recreational vehicles, campers) all in one place. The infield fan areas are filled with folk who arrive typically a day or two before the big race and just camp out there in the infield. Some of the RVs are improvised. One popular model consists of an old school bus painted some improbable color, with metal railings welded around the roof so the occupants can stand up there to watch the race.

NASCAR's attempts to Disneyfy their sport have made little headway in the Talladega infield. The crowd is noisy and beery. They wear denim shorts and T-shirts, baseball caps or bandannas. I see a lot of tattoos and a lot of Confederate flags. The track's security people inspect the interior of each vehicle before allowing it to park, and I was told it has been "some years" since there was a shooting on the infield, but things still get rowdy, particularly the night before a big race. (Among the track's other administrative facilities is a small jail.) Rowdy, and raunchy too: The Mardi Gras custom of beads for skin (you give the lady a string of beads, she briefly exposes her chest) has come up to Talladega, and it is common to see girls with several strings of beads round their necks -- although, as one of my NASCAR minders noted wistfully, "The girls you'd like to see doing it aren't the ones doing it."

I watched the first few minutes of the race from the infield, near the starting line. The 43 competing vehicles circle the track slowly, two by two, behind a pace car. Each car's position in line has been determined by pre-race qualifying laps. As they come to the starting line, the pace car pulls off the track, a green flag is waved, and the drivers throttle up to full power. Everyone had told me that this is the most thrilling moment of a race, and they did not lie. That mighty surge of engines, the even mightier roar of the crowd, the smell of gasoline and rubber, all combine into an extraordinary sensory experience. What follows is necessarily something of an anticlimax, especially as it goes on for three hours or more. The lead cars tend to form a large "pack," so you get a small reprise of that starting thrill each time the pack passes your viewing point, but after half an hour or so, as the faster cars lapped the slower ones, I lost track of who was leading.