84 June 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com
HOW LOUD
IS IT?
(EVERY 10-DECIBEL
INCREASE ROUGHLY
DOUBLES LOUDNESS)70 dB
Vacuum cleaner90 dB
The motorcycle
driven through
your neighbor-
hood at 6 a.m.105 dB
Ta b l e s aw106 dB
(20 feet from
track)115 dB
Rock concert115 dB
Pig’s squeal140 dB
F-22 at takeoffthe truck I brought—a 2019 Ram
1500—in front of her house while
we’re gone but I elect to bring it. It’s
nice to have a nimble pilot fish once
the whale is parked, just in case you
need to make a quick drive out to
Bojangles’. I mean, the Charlotte
infield has its own Bojangles’, but in
case you need to go somewhere else.
Our space is forty feet long, which
should be enough for both Ram and
Thor, the newest Marvel duo in North
Carolina.EFORE YOU DRIVE into
the track, you pull over in
a dirt parking lot and get
searched. I don’t know
what they’re searching
for—maybe making sure I have
moonshine—but the security guard
apparently satisfies himself that
I don’t have too many chainsaw-
wielding escaped convicts inside.
The other thing I don’t have is tick-
ets, since Cathy mailed them to me
a long time ago and then I lost them.
I was counting on the track to be cool
about my idiocy, and they are. They
look up my name, write me a park-
ing pass, and tell me to find my spot.
Then, I can visit “will call” for my pit
passes and radio vouchers. (Cathy
convinced me to order a pair of those
so I can listen to the track announcer
and team chatter, which I hope will
involve plenty of threats and cussin’.)
Granted, this is my first time driv-
ing an RV into a Nascar infield, but
not my first time driving an RV. So
I know enough to pull over before
I drive into my “neighborhood,” a
cluster of spaces hard against the
fence along the back chicane. You
want a sense of what you’re getting
into, you know? I jog ahead to find
our spot, which turns out to be a good
idea since there’s an F350 in it. This
belongs to our neighbor in the triple-
axle trailer next door, who is cordial
but obviously disappointed that I
showed up to park on his side lawn.
I guess most people get there before
Saturday—my parking pass entitled
me to arrive as early as Wednesday.
He moves his truck but the chal-
lenges are just beginning. For one
thing, I hadn’t really considered how
we’d actually watch the race. Cathy
told me most people sit on the roofs
of their RVs, but everybody seems to
have specially constructed platformsfree admission to the Sammy Hagar
concert Saturday night? Hell yes.
And buy in advance, yes, because
the price goes up in the weeks before
the race. “One important thing to
remember,” she says before we hang
up, “is to make sure your RV isn’t
taller than thirteen and a half feet.
That’s the height of the tunnel lead-
ing into the infield. Taller than that
and you’ll be parking outside.”
Duly noted. Also noted is that
the space I’ve booked is rather mini-
malist, in that it’s apparently a chalk
outline on a plot of grass. Which
means that I’ll need an RV with a gen-
erator, because there’s no power (or
water or sewer) hookup. My searches
on Outdoorsy.com, an RV renta l site,
narrow considerably. Especially once
I factor in my destination. Many
owners have specific prohibitions
against going to Nascar races. Huh.
I wonder why?
Eventually I find the perfect ride:
an almost-new Thor Axis motor
coach that sleeps five, has a genera-
tor, and doesn’t have any anti-Nascar
lang uage in the listing. I book it and,
on the Saturday before the race, my
wife, kids, and I show up at a house
in the Charlotte suburbs and claim
our rolling hotel for the weekend. The
owner doesn’t ask where we’re going
and I don’t volunteer it, since “infield
Sammy Hagar concert” seems like
the kind of phrase that might raise
the hackles of someone handing over
the keys to a $120,000 vehicle.
The RV’s owner says we can parkBECAUSE I’VE ONLY ever been at
Nascar races to write stories—and
Nascar is what you call media-
friendly—I’ve never had a true Nascar
experience. An experience that was
not meticulously scrubbed of incon-
venience. So I had questions: How do
you rent an RV? Where do you park
it? What kind of tickets do you buy
so you can see cool stuff but not blow
your budget for fried bologna sand-
wiches? Is there stuff to eat besides
fried bologna sandwiches?
My first ca ll is to a woman named
Cathy, who works in sales for Char-
lotte Motor Speedway. I’m going to
the fall Roval 400 race, which will use
the track’s new infield road course to
throw a few right turns into the Nas-
car formula. This isn’t some kind
of automated Ticketmaster deal—
Cathy is selling me tickets, but she’s
also advising me on where I should
be and what I should do. Infield, yes.
Along the fence, yes. Pit access with