@PopularMechanics _ June 2019 89one gets a little squirrelly at the
corner exit as they get back on the
gas to head onto the banking. I watch
one car paint stripes from the rear
tires as the driver rides a power slide
out of the corner. There’s serious tal-
ent on display. For all the crashes you
see in Nascar, there are probably a
hundred almost-crashes that hap-
pen every lap. These guys are driving
on the hairy edge and it’s fascinating
to sit here in the bed of a pickup right
against the fence, watching it all.
The race finishes in dramatic
fashion, with Jimmy Johnson crash-
ing into Martin Truex Jr. on the last
chicane of the last lap, taking out
both cars and allowing Ryan Blaney
to steal the win. In a charming exam-
ple of old-school Nascar orneriness,
Truex expresses his discontent with
Johnson’s botched pass by ram-
ming his car and spinning him on
the cool-down lap, after the race is
over. There are no post-race blows
to the head, but it’s still nice to see
a driver expressing genuine pissed-
off emotion.
However, I don’t see any of that in
real time. Per my standard practice at
sporting events, we leave a few min-
utes early to escape the traffic. I know,
I know: I’m lame and not a hard-core
fan, but I have to return the RV and
the kids have school tomorrow and
those realities overcome my desire to
watch the finish unfold on the video
screen. I concede it was a mistake to
leave early, but cut me some slack. I’ve
still got a lot to learn.Clockwise from top left: The view
from the stands as the race begins;
Nascar means standing in the back of
a Ram with the family and watching
cars come at you at 170 mph; drivers
experiment with turning right; Ryan
Blaney in the winner’s circle; tire-
changing time; and action in the pits.
Our chauffeur turns out to be Kyle
Busch, something of a Nascar bad
boy. In 2011 he got a speeding ticket
for doing 128 mph in a Lexus LFA,
and just this morning we saw a guy
wearing a T-shirt that read “Warn-
ing: I’m a Kyle Busch fan & an a**hole
so if you don’t want your feelings
hurt, walk away.” I don’t want to ruin
Busch’s rep by saying that he’s per-
fectly genial during our lap, but he’s
perfectly genial during our lap. As we
head into the back chicane at perhaps
100 mph, he says, “Here comes the
crash corner.” There’s a narrow rac-
ing line through the chicane but the
view through the windshield seems
like all wall—tire wall jutting out on
the left, outside wall wrapping around
on the right. I ask Busch how fast
he’ll be going here when he hits the
brakes, and he says “Probably about
160 mph.” Tell me again, smug F1
fan, how Nascar drivers don’t really
have skills.NCE THE RACE actu-
ally starts, we quickly
lose track of who’s in the
lead, but that’s what the
200-foot-wide video screen
is for. It’s tempting to glue your eyes
to that display, but the action just
on the other side of the fence is mes-
merizing: car after car heading right
at us at 170 mph—Busch underesti-
mated his speed, it turns out—the
drivers nailing perfect rev-matched
downshifts while negotiating the
treacherous chicane. Almost every-