NASCAR Speed Street

This weekend is Speed Street Weekend in Charlotte. This weekend at The Lowes Motor Speedway, we have the Coca Cola 600. One of the big National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) events.

Personally, I don’t see the attraction AT ALL! I’m certainly not into auto racing in the least bit. I live about 3 or 4 miles, as the crow flies, from LMS and can hear the racing quite clearly if I am outside and if it is pretty quiet inside. It’s not disturbing, but you can hear it.

Downtown Charlotte is transformed into a bustling, crowded, loud, carnival-like atmosphere. One of my friends remarked that it reminded her of India with the shoulder to shoulder crowds that line the streets.

There are places to buy beer, compete in pit crew races where you get a pneumatic wrench and try to beat pit crew times for changing tires, get all kinds of free sample sized goodies, and even have the chance to sample new ‘flavors’ of chewing tobacco, if you are over 18 and are so inclined!

Sprinkled throughout the streets are real NASCAR automobiles with signs announcing when drivers will be available for autographs. There are credit card companies and insurance companies hawking you to sign up for their products. There are contests available where you can win up to $500 in free gas (Who couldn’t use that with prices at $3.20/gallon?!). I don’t think that I’d want to drive one of those autos though … something tells me that they are not good on gas mileage!

There’s even something for the kiddies … and myself. There was a sing-along at one end of the street. The guy only had about 2 or 3 kids there, so I decided to help in the sing-along and add my voice for a bit. It was fun! I like being a big kid!

I walked the streets for about 45 minutes, dodging the performance stages where possible as they are only playing rock & country for the most part and I just wasn’t feeling either of those genres at the time! There’s not a single blues band or jazz band that has signed up. Oh well, you get what you pay for! They are all free!

About the photos:
The collage is a bunch of street scenes that I saw when walking through on Thursday, the first day of the Speed Street.

The second is of a coworker and friend, Rajesh. I told him that I’d make him a star! Here he is taking his best shot at being serious border patrol looking kind of guy!

The third is the crowd.

The fourth is the US Navy band playing. Hard rock! I had to escape!!!