Here come the NASCARs – Alton Telegraph

I have tremendous news, folks!  The Cup Series for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) will be coming to St. Louis for the first time ever.  Whoopee!!  That ought to get racing fans’ engines started.  

St. Louis somehow managed to snag one of the races for this year’s series probably because St. Louisans already drive like NASCAR racers all over downtown anyway so they thought it would be a good fit.  This marks the first time that a St. Louis site was chosen, so we ought to be proud of the organizers’ ingenuity or the fact that NASCAR didn’t know the raceway was so close to crime-ridden St. Louis.

The World Wide Technology Raceway across the river from the Arch, where the race will be held, seats 78,000.  As a comparison, Talladega Superspeedway in Florida has a capacity of 160,000.  That’s a lot of hotdogs and chicken wings to make.  

NASCAR had its origins during Prohibition in the 1930s when the manufacture of alcohol for sale or distribution was against the law. Since it was illegal, that naturally made people want to do it even more. And to evade the law and deliver the alcohol (in the days before Amazon Prime), they needed very fast cars that carried a lot of booze.

The solution was to modify existing cars and soup them up with 4 barrel carburetors and overhead valves, paint racing stripes on the side to make them go faster and increase the storage area to hide as much illicit moonshine as they could. This is the story of the original concealed carry.

A natural competition formed between moonshine haulers to see whose car was fastest and the seeds of the modern day NASCAR were planted. However, there was one thing faster than any modified roadster and that was the two-way radios the police soon acquired. Furthermore, since liquor was soon allowed to be sold nearly everywhere, there was no longer a need for these blazing fast cars.  

So they found a new home racing around a track in front of fans who were now drinking the moonshine the cars used to deliver.

How’s that for fate? And some of these intoxicated fans go to a race hoping to see a wreck at nearly 200 miles an hour as long as the driver can walk away from it.  

And just like in real life, once there is an accident, the other NASCAR drivers slow down to rubber neck causing traffic to stall on the oval. However, no police show up demanding to see your license and asking “Where’s the fire?” or “Do you realize how fast you were going?”

A season typically consists of 36 individual races with blue, red and white ribbons awarded for finishing in first, second and third place. Or is that the three-legged race at the county fair? I always confuse them.

The race will take place on Sunday, June 5th, and organizers are expecting a big turnout. In case you’re wondering what happens in case of rain, the race may be halted or even postponed as if it had snowed or there had been an ice storm.

NASCAR tires don’t do well on a wet track as you might have guessed. There’s a reason they call them “slicks”. If it rains during the race, drivers naturally slow down unlike those on U.S. interstate highways who actually seem to speed up.  

So mark Sunday, June 5th on your calendars and go enjoy watching people actually go fast in the fast lane (unlike in real life), change lanes without signaling and tailgate (just like in real life) all at 200 miles an hour (just like on I-70).   

Joe Crawford is a longtime Alton resident who writes weekly columns for The Telegraph. He can be contacted at [email protected]. 

Source: https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Here-come-the-NASCARs-17175717.php