A Taste of “NASCAR”Charlotte

WHAT MAKES NASCAR SO POPULAR TODAY?

Are there any American car racing fanatics out there? If so, this blog might interest you as I illustrate some impressions of NASCAR’s staying power during our recent road trip visit to Charlotte, North Carolina. To begin with, just consider the simple facts that in 2022, the NASCAR brand proved to be the #1 spectator sport in the United States. For there are over 3,000,000 race enthusiasts tuned in per average on television for each race totaling over 114,000,00 viewers throughout the entire year.

So what motivated me, in particular, to experience NASCAR in Charlotte this weekend? The answer seems a bit complicated to explain. I don’t particularly like inflicting myself to driving at dangerously high speeds but I often experience a sudden rush from watching these drivers push the limits of their vehicles in each race. The “blue collar” nature of mechanically “fixing up” cars to make them go much faster does not particularly impress me but the creative visual appearances of each car definitely “hooks me in”. I wonder with some apprehension as well why there’s such a predominance of ‘”good old boy” southerners who comprise the NASCAR driving circuit, but I admire them all as heroes for their raw courage and driving skills to stretch the limits of their vehicle’s performance.

Thus it’s of some relief to me  that my short visit to the Hendrick Motorsports Museum and nearby Charlotte Motor Speedway resolved some of my NASCAR confusion. For I did not need to watch an actual NASCAR event that day in Charlotte to realize that each fast running car I observed more closely at the museum portrayed to me a beautifully designed artpiece rather than a death defying machine. Accordingly, why need I bother judging the culture of NASCAR on this visit when those “All- American” images of winning drivers like Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson so prominently captured my attention instead. Gazing in awe at this silent speedway facility today, my imagination would also run rampant of NASCAR’s historic mark on a colossal human scale. For does this grand stage for auto racing enthusiasts retell the story of those ancient gladiator games of violent life and death struggles that once took place at the famed Colosseum of Rome? Enjoy the photo set of our Charlotte NASCAR visit below.