A Whole Other World

So we went to Darlington an old track in South Carolina for a race weekend.
51 weeks a year, Darlington is a small rural town, and its only interest in that it is the seat of Darlington County.  One week a year, the NASCAR circus comes and turns Darlington into something else.  As my son said, "Going to a race is like going to another world, but the world moves around to different places".  So here is a bit of an introduction to this fun, diverse, unique world that is a race weekend.

The Track seats 60,000 people, and that doesn't include people that camp in the infield and outside, exhibitors, officials and race teams.  Everyone converges on one town from Thursday to Sunday ready for the show.

 Allegiances in order: America, the South and NASCAR. 

 

These 5 semis transport the broadcast trucks for Speed TV.  They don't broadcast the race, just pre and post race programming.  Fox, who broadcasts the race, has 16. 

Before you get to the track is the midway where exhibitors have displays.  Restaurants, food companies, insurance companies, military branches, ministries, and anything else you can think of have displays with games, announcers, give aways, or just really cool displays.

After hours on the midway, it is time to go inside.  The national anthem, a prayer and 4 F-16's later

Someone yells "Drivers start your engines.  43 cars with 750 horsepower make the grandstands vibrate under your feet.

 

The power as the cars take the track is overwhelming, the entire crowd of over 60,000 are on their feet waiting for the green flag to drop.

 

Darlington is unique on the circuit.  To go fast, the cars run right up next to the outer wall.

 The cars in this shot are blurry because they run around the track around 130 miles per hour, meaning they circle the track in 30 seconds.  The closer to the wall they go, the faster they can go.  When that doesn't work the cars scrape the wall, leaving what is called the "Darlington Stripe" 

 Then the sun sets and the lights come on. Eventually the laps tick down and the race is over.

The whole show packs up onto trucks and goes on to the next track, 39 times a year.