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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Confessions of a Racing Junkie Part I

Originally Posted on Foxsports.com on December 14, 2005.

It started innocently enough.  After I finally finished my education, I was traveling across country with my Dad, and we stopped in Indianapolis (where else) to visit my aunt & uncle.  My uncle offered me the first seductive hit of racing by "forcing" us to watch a nascar race.  I don't recall seeing stock cars race before.  I suppose I knew it existed, but it had never registered on my radar.  Traditional stick & ball sports were my experience - both watching and playing.  However, my uncle's enthusiasm for this motor sport thing was catching.  And after that first hit, I remember thinking "I could learn to really like that."

Several months later I had my first memorable encounter with a nascar junkie.  He had all the trappings of a true nascar fan.  He owed numerous die cast cars, T-shirts, neon signs and other assorted junk.  I don't think he could decide which beer company to support, so he bought racing stuff from them all.  To top it off, he couldn't stop explaining the Daytona 500 qualification process to me and my co-worker.  We thought he was a scary  - so we set a new land speed record cleaning his house and bolted.

Shortly thereafter, I moved to a new town.  And, in the secret confines of my apartment, I began regularly taking hits of nascar races.  On Saturdays, I watched Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth battle it out for the Busch series championship.  But on Sundays, I avoided the racing scene - everyone would be talking football, basketball or baseball  - and I didn't want them to know about this new habit I had picked up.

6 comments:

RA6AN said...

Ooh ooh! Can't wait to read the next installment!

Forensic2 blog said...

You being a junkie, I bet you can under stand what Mayfield is going threw or maybe not.lol

Cheers2You

Gene Haddock said...

Most of the time it's a friend or family member who gets us hooked. Just a couple hours on Saturdays at first. Then the grip takes over and its Friday afternoon through Sunday night. Work takes a back seat. Non-using friends are ignored.

How bad have you got it?

photogr said...

Adictive isn't it?

Annette said...

Ra6an - Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

Forsenic - Different kind of junkie, but the addictive symptoms are similar, as you should know! :)

Gene: So True. I'm not seeking treatment yet!

Photo - Very.

jon_464 said...

Iowa-Girl, enjoyable read. Like you, I got into racing through an uncle. He was a HUGE Dale Earnhardt fan and now he's a Dale Jr. fan. I was a kid when he suggested to watch Wide World of Sports because WWOS used to show highlights of NASCAR races, and I used to watch them. I just liked the racing. I didn't have a particular driver I rooted for until the early 90's, when I became a Terry Labonte fan until 2001, when Kevin Harvick made his Cup debut under very difficult circumstances. I've been a Harvick fan since.