The Wikiness

One day when I was 11, dad asked me, “How would you like to fly to Alabama to see the Talladega 500?” He may as well have asked if I wanted to dance the tarantella on Venus. The question made no sense. I craved dad’s company so much that I readily agreed.

Dad ran an art agency his father had started in the Loop, and his newest venture, Pro-Motions, was a series of licenced art posters for Major League Baseball, the NFL, and the NBA. These games we knew and loved, along with most American men in 1972. 

His friend and associate, a fellow Korean War vet named Fred Dresbach, encouraged dad to look further afield, to a competition no one in Chicagoland seemed to know anything about or take any interest in: the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

Fred had been a helicopter pilot in Korea. In civilian life he flew his own Cessna 172. For a boy with a fear of heights this trip was one long thrill. In Fred’s small plane you felt everything–each gust of turbulence, each staccato pelting of rain, and when we’d bank, each nauseating tug of G-force on the guts. The noise of the engine didn’t allow conversation for me in the rear, but dad and Fred appeared to be having a great time via headsets up front. 

I amused myself looking down at the shifting terrain, wondering “Where are those tiny cars going? What’s happening in those toy buildings?”

Aground in Talladega, we checked into a Holiday Inn that seemed the height of luxury. Fred had his room, and dad and I shared one with two beds. The motel had free ice, cups, little soaps, a TV remote control and something called “magic fingers” on the bedside table, a vibration machine I figured must help people sleep. 

Dad gave me a couple of dollars. “Fred and I are going to talk business,” he said, and left. The hoped-for father-son time wouldn’t happen. I’m now sure that dad and Fred were drinking, something he was trying to hide from me at this time. 

I bought pop and candy from the vending machine, and watched whatever I wanted on the local stations.

For time trials the day before the race, dad and Fred worked deals with the Wood Brothers racing crew. We drove our rental car into the infield, a carnival scene of RVs flying rebel flags, country music, and all types of festive fans in shorts, t-shirts, and sunglasses. When a trial happened, the unmuffled roar of an 8 cylinder stock car at speeds approaching 190 demanded attention, like a dive bomber, a screaming, avenging angel.

Race day, the stands were full. Dad and Fred once again left me to my own devices. I found a perch aboard a promotional RV and watched the action from there. After the national anthem and prayer, the announcer intoned, “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

The sound of 40 stock car engines at full throttle was a force of nature, obliterating all words, all thought. It induced in me a sort of transcendent trance. For the space of the race, there was only this.

Like the 70 thousand fans present, I responded to the heavy metal thunder with awe and admiration. The moral complexities of NASCAR–its horrendous celebration of automotive technology and “southern pride” via the ubiquitous stars & bars–were lost on me

The race had transformed this midwestern boy into a NASCAR fan… for a while.