May 25th, Concord, North Carolina

Derest friends, you are probably like myself. When you think of NASCAR your mind teems with dozens of cultural associations–none of them flattering, none of them inconspicuous. None of them are entirely unfounded either. You probably have little or nothing in common with the 250,000 plus people who are likely to congregate for a big race, and you probably don’t understand the point of watching 50 or so people drive in a circle for six hours. You might not even like sports. I was and am still very much like you, but to you i say this: go to one race. After the pacelap, when the real race began, the verb ‘to roar’ no longer belonged to lions. It now belonged to these massive blurry objects in blindingly elliptical orbit around the makeshift RV shanty in the middle of the track. They were indescribable. Demon cats from space. For speed, approximate to the eye. There was actually a moment where i got rubber from one of the tires on my face.

This is a very close place to stand to a track full of race cars.

Aforementioned rubber. Aforementioned face.

Hot time in the old town.

With these scanners we could hear what was going on with all of the pit crews.

Lounge.

Sea Bass.

You will come to love Geoff very much if you meet him. It is inevitable.

The bottom of that thing he is welding is actually part of a muffler that flew off of one of the cars over the fence and almost hit this woman in the head. I was standing ten feet away. The thing was the temperature you would imagine errant metal from a race car to be. I am sure her head would have melted and or been removed. Luckily, she was fine. The metal sculptor decided to commemorate this kind bit of luck by welding the flying muffler cap to his sculpture. Here’s to narrow escapes!

Sunset and the welcome feeling of night.

Sun sleepy and smelling like fumes, we were genuinely amazed.