Your Most Memorable Moment At A Race

[PuglieseVT]

What's the wildest, weirdest, funniest experience you've ever had at a race? Infield story, parking lot story, something that happened in the stands.


I have two:


One-- almost being run over by Kyle Petty's Mello Yello team walking down the street in Daytona on the Friday evening of race weekend in 1992. A minivan full of crew guys screaming, flying around a corner, bottoming out the van as it bounded the enterance into the parking lot of a party store. Wasn't really "that" close to getting hit, but my dad grabbed my arm.


And to this day the most surreal thing I have ever seen. At Michigan 1998, a guy drinking Captain Morgan out of the bottle....not a Coca~Cola in sight. He was wrestling with a bag of Dorritos trying to get it open. Finally he held it with one hand took the other, and popped the bag like a balloon. All of the chips blew out the bottom of the bag and onto the dirty infield.  He got down on all 4s, and started eating the chips off the ground with his hands. Handfulls of Nacho Cheese Dorritos, dirt, and grass. This was at 9am. NASCAR: How Bad Have YOU Got It?

[Butterbean]

Back in 1950 my father built a 37 Ford Coupe and raced at a 1/4 mile dirt track at Camp Butner NC.  One day Goat Crabtree from Bahama (where Scott Riggs if from) took me for a ride around the track.  I'll never forget that. Goat didn't take it easy either, as he was broadsliding the car around the track.  I was holding on (to the roll bar which was two bars in an X behind the driver, and the window opening) for dear life.  We did about 10 laps and when it was over, I wanted to go again but daddy wouldn't let me.


Also in 77, meeting David Pearson at Tryco Speedway and spending about an hour with him.  Even held his clothes for him to change into his uniform. 

[Chris]

This didn't really happen at the "track" but on the way to the track.
Back in 1979 when Dale Earnhardt was still a "nobody" we run into him and his crew at a gas station filling up their van.
The race was in Nashville (the 420) Of course we were going and being on a high school budget we couldn't afford the rooms in Nashville with the race being in town.  Also as luck would have it we met some girls at the Spring race in Atlanta, and they lived in the city of Cookville (about 90 miles from Nashille)
SO we went and spent Friday night seeing them.

The race was Saturday night in Nashville,.. and we got up and stopped at the station to fill up and head to Nashville.  In pulls Earnhardt and his crew in the van to do the same.  I walked over and talked to him,.. just like I had known him all my life.  This was back in the time of CB radios, and we took of and headed to Nashville, and at a rather high rate of speed.  I guess we run 90 for quite a while and we took turns running the "front door"... I got caught up in traffic, and we had kinda quite talking for a while when I heard a 'smokey' was about 5 miles ahead hidden checking our direction of traffic.  I HAD to get in touch with them... NO CONTACT on the radio.  Well at 90 mph miles were slipping by in a hurry.
Finally I decided i had to just speed up enough to catch them... I guess they had gotten maybe a mile ahead.. and I had to run the old Trans AM up to about 120 before I run them down.
I caught them about 1/2 mile or so before where the cop was and me and my buddy was motioning wildly to get them to slow down... we slowed down to the speed limit just before we went by the cop.  He was setting on an "entrance ramp" where he could gun us as went went by but no one see him.  He got our speeds as we went by.
We pointed back behind us,.. and they turned around and saw the cop. 
They turned on the radio,.. and thanked us for saving their ass.  They had been talking about what to do to the car, what adjustments to make, and had quit "listening" to what was going on on the CB.
I went ahead and run front door the rest of the way in... and that way they could "stratigize" without haveing to worry about cops.
We drove straight to to the track and went our separate ways.
When I got to going to the races and saw him in the pits (late 90's I suppose)... I told him I had saw him LONG ago.  Then recounted the story.  He remembered and we both got a good laugh out of it.  I still remember that cheesy grin.

[Brian623]

Wow!  Many many memories from a lot of events. One that sitcks out now is the morning after the '93 Daytona 500 . We were in the McDonalds across from the track, having breakfast before the long drive home,and in walk Dale Jarrett, Jimmy Makar, their wives and kids. They just ordered, sat down, and ate, like any other average family, no one paying any special attention to them at all. Now you pay big money just to be in the same room as the winner the morning after the 500..Man, the times have changed! As we got up to go, we just said Good Morning to them,congatulations, and let them continue breakfast.

Another memory recalled last month was the first Brickyard.We stayed at a Motel 6 near the airport, and also staying there were James Hylton and their crew.On Thursday night after first round qualifying, they were in the motel parking lot, working on their car.So we called Domino's and shared some pizza with them as they worked, which they really appreciated..Just the simple memories from years back. And I haven't even touched track stories yet.

[Tonyfan14]

I have a couple. My first moment was when I went to my first race at Dover. I had no clue what to expect and well I found out pretty quickly that if you were a Tony fan you were not very welcomed. This was in 02 when he had ALOT of haters in the stands. I remember getting into some war or words with some people. The funny thing is is that I see those same people every year and 2 of the 3 are now Tony fans.

My second moment was at that same race. The guy sitting 2 rows down from us was a huge Jr fan and obvisouly did not like Jeff Gordon. Well everytime Jeff went by this guy would stand up and flip Jeff off. He did this lap after lap for the whole race. And to this day he still does it.

And my last moment was just something that I thought was pretty cool.It was the 04 race at Dover. Now the week before was when Robby Gordon took out Greg and Tony and Mayfiend got caught up in that wreck. Well on one of the restarts Robby tried to pass Tony on the right and ran out of room and ended up banging into Tony. Well coming into turn 3 where I was sitting Tony was behind Robby and everyone knew Tony was going to do something to Robby so you see everyone in turn 3 standing up trying to get a good look of what was going to happen. So Tony of course gave the bumper to Robby and the next time around you would have thought Tony won the race because the stands just erupted in cheers.

[racin_girl72]

I have a couple funny ones:

First race I went to at MIS with a bunch of friends.  One of them had connections with the lady running the parking area right by our seats (turn 1 by the water tower).  So we got there at the crack of dawn, parked the van right in the front row.  Then we proceeded to fall asleep for a while.  Only to wake up to find the porta-potty line snaking around the side door of the van.  Guess we parked too close!  We weren't right next to them, but I didn't think the line would go that long.

Second thing that stands out was the last race I went to (Texas, the year Dale Jr won his first race and Adam Petty ran his only Cup race).  My friends husband got the tickets through where he worked.  So we were in a section with a bunch of people who were just there to be there and not diehard fans.  Most of them were either Gordon or Dale Sr. fans.  This bimbo in front of us turned around and said, now don't you guys cheer if Jeff wrecks.  I laughed and said that's like telling a dog not to bark!  LOL  Sure enough, Gordon wrecks right in front of us and we cheered and got a dirty look.  But it was worth it!

And no I don't wish any driver to wreck and get hurt, but he was fine and trying to drive off before we yelled

[HUDSON HORNET]

I think my MOST memorable moment at a race is yet to come.

[KurtBuschFan]

Boy so many to choose from....

[falcon325]

I’ ve mentioned one of my favorite track memories before.  The week after Dale Earnhardt died in the 2001 Daytona 500, we went to the Rock.  I was wearing my usual Terry LaBonte gear, and my girls had on Gordon colors.  They gave out thousands of free Earnhardt pennants, first come, first served.  We got there early and got some pennants.

We had great seats in the top row in turn four.  In fact, before the race we could see C-130s dropping troopers from Fort Bragg on Holland Drop Zone off in the distance.  After we had been in our seats for a while, a couple dressed in black from head to toe sat down next to us.  They saw that the others around them had pennants and asked where we got them from.  When we told them the track had handed them out, to be held up in tribute to Dale, they looked absolutely crushed that they hadn’t gotten one.  My girls and I had three, and it was pretty clear to me that those folks would treasure that pennant, so I gave ‘em one.  They were very appreciative.   

Steve Park won that the race that day in the #1 DEI Pennzoil car.  That was pretty cool. 

[smyler]

Not my favorite race moment but the first memory to come to mind was of 2 guys going at it in the parking lot, after the race last fall in Pocono.  One guy goes crazy and starts going after the other with a tire iron.  2 of his friends had to pull him off.  The other guy was able to walk away though.  It happened 50 yards from me so I wasn't close enough to get involved, though I'm not sure I would have even if I'd been closer.  Drinking is ok, acting crazy when you get drunk is another thing.  The tire iron dude was definitely drunk.

[DotheDew88]

I've only been to two races so far, the Busch and Cup race at Daytona this year. It seems that we were surrounded by Jr and Tony fans everywhere. I was surprised at how mean people were towards JG. He got booed at introductions and everytime he went by. I know people don't like him, but didn't expect this at the race. Now I'm sure there were places where they booed Jr and Tony, but not by us. It was freezing the day of the 500, and we were up there in the stands doing shots of tequila. People were laughing at me bc I had my little packets of salt from McDonalds and cut up lemons. The Busch race was the best. Jr had that bright orange car, and just watching him and Tony up front was awesome!

[No3Fan4Ever]

I had a $5 bet with a buddy that Mark Martin WOULD win a race, this was in 1988; before he ever won a cup race;

After the spring race at Bristol in 1988 we stopped at the Wooden Nickel restaurant for dinner; while we were sitting there, in comes Mark Martin and Michael Waltrip and some of their crew members and they sit at the table right next to us;
I reach over and shake Mark Martin's hand and tell him I have a bet with my buddy sitting there that you(mark) WOULDN'T  win a race this year...................he looked at me and stammered 'well, I'm ah, ah, um, er gonna win one real soon' ; and of course my buddy burst out laughing; I didn't realize what I had said.............and yes alcohol was a factor

[Earl]

meeting Bobby Allison in Vctory Lane after he had won the race, forget where was a long time ago, still have his hat he gave me.

[DodgePower]

1985 at Darlington when Bill Elliott won the million dollar race..... Boy that was one fun day.....

Did you know Bill Elliott was the first professional stock-car driver to appear on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" after he won the Winston Million in 1985?