My afternoon with NASCAR

“Now I see why NASCAR has fans!”


My friend, apartment mate, coworker, and co-producer Scott Reynolds uttered one of the more poignant lines of the day soon after we arrived at Irwindale Speedway. Both Scott and I accepted an invitation to join Pepperdine alumnus Mike Hurd and the HDNet Production team for the NASCAR event with some degree of trepidation. The thought of driving an hour and a half through LA traffic to watch people make four left turns over and over and over again was, quite frankly, not the most luring prospect in the world. However, the invitation carried with it free pit passes, and a behind the scenes, all access look inside a mobile production unit; an offer we could not possibly pass up.



While waiting for Mike to get back from running a couple errands Scott and I took our first peak at what was to be our entertainment for the following five hours. Though, at the moment, we were merely looking at a few practice warm up laps, the adrenaline rush was instantaneous. This was indeed something very, very cool that we were getting to be a part of.

Throughout the rest of the evening, Scott and I picked Mike’s brain about the television industry and enjoyed the privileges that the HDNet orange wristband bestowed upon us. We were living the high life. After watching a few of the cars go through the screening process to ensure that they were abiding by race regulations, we went for a stroll down the parking lot where all of the race teams were setting up shop. Scott approached the guys sitting around the Goodyear truck and inquired as to what happened to the tires after a race. Though most of them are taken back to Goodyear for post race analysis to ensure that they are wearing in the manor they are expected to, the good ole boys at Goodyear offered Scott as many of the used racing slicks as he wanted. Needless to say, we drove home with as many of the huge worn out tires in the back of Scott’s GTI as we could fit. What really set that experience apart for me was that when we were going to pull the car from the far parking lot, the gentleman at the pit entrance called the shuttle for us rather than having us walk over to our car, something we had not even considered. We were invited to drive Scott’s car in, with and through the racecars, and park it in the pit while we loaded up the tires.

The shuttle then met us at Scott’s parking place once more to bring us back to the pit entrance. This is not the standard operating procedure for your average race-goer who decides to fork up the money to get pit passes. We were being treated as if we were somebody. Quite an intoxicating experience.

As much fun as we had wandering around Irwindale Speedway, in and out of the pits at will, I must say the pinnacle of the evening for me came when we stole a peak inside the Production trailer for forty-five minutes during the race.

There were about fourteen people and a monstrous amount of equipment crammed into a trailer producing a live, high definition, tv broadcast. The level of insanity in the room was astounding. At the moment we chose to step in, there were two cameras currently not working, and a bad data feed from the official NASCAR ranking crew. This meant that the already enormous stress burden on the crew was even more elevated. It took a moment to get my wits together in order to follow what was going on in the control truck, but I soon realized that, though there was constant shouting, it was purposeful, smooth, effective, and the crew managed to throw little one-liners around, proving that they were above the situation, and could handle anything that was thrown at them.

What made the afternoon so incredible was undeniably the quality of the people Scott and I were surrounded with. Mike had gone out of his way to extend the invitation, and made it known to us that his crew was just about as laid back, easy going a crew that a national television network can field at the moment. They were open to any question, however uneducated, I could toss out there, and were enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge and love for what they do. Even more than that though was the knowledge that when I was down in the pits, I was back amongst good ole boys. There was no sense of grandeur, warranted or otherwise. Scott and I were even roped into helping one driver push his car out to the track. When the national anthem was sung, there was not a hat that wasn’t removed or a heart that wasn’t crossed. When the prayer was given before the race started, “our boys overseas” were remembered and the amen was followed by cheers. When the day was said and done, the race was ran and won, something that didn’t seem to make sense before the experience was left perfectly clear; now I see why NASCAR has fans.



For more pictures Scott and I took this evening, visit my smugmug gallery.