Many NASCAR Fans Are Who You Think They Are

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by Julian Spivey
I began watching NASCAR during the 2001 season, so this season was my milestone 20th as a NASCAR fan. I’ve seen some of the greatest races in the sport’s history, attended multiple races at four different tracks thus far and had the opportunity to hang out in the garage area at Kansas Speedway in October of 2015 during one of my all-time favorite driver Jeff Gordon’s final races. Hanging in the garage area during a NASCAR weekend is my all-time favorite in-person sports memory and I’m sure it’s a dream for every NASCAR fan.
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There’s been a lot of good in the sport in my 20 years following it and there’s been some bad. But the part of being a NASCAR fan I’ve always despised is when somebody who doesn’t know much about the sport asks me with a questioning tone in their voice: “how can you watch NASCAR?” That question is often followed with a follow-up about the sport being boring, which I always retort with “every sport has boring, and exciting events and NASCAR is no different.” But often people will follow up with questions about it being a “redneck” or “ignorant” or even “racist” sport. I usually comeback with a response about how sports can’t be racist. Folks within it can be, but the sport itself is no more racist than any other and by that, I mean it’s not because as I just said sports can’t be racist.

But there have been moments over the years, really the last few, that have made it harder to defend the sport. President Donald Trump attended the Daytona 500 at the start of the 2020 season and I was disgusted by that. Presidents have attended NASCAR races before, but this one felt different. It was just a conservative or a liberal thing, but a “this guy is a horrible person” thing. Also, during the 2020 season came the response to Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., the only black driver in the sport’s top series, having Black Lives Matter on his car (which was truly a heroic move on his part given the political and likely ideological beliefs within the sport and its fan-base) and then the mistaken hate crime of a potential noose being found in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway. The reception from many fans toward Wallace has been poor – he’s probably the most booed driver on the circuit since then – and has led me to see a lot of bad things about the fan-base that were almost certainly always there, but I hadn’t seen with my own eyes.

I hadn’t been to a NASCAR race since 2015 until attending the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Sept. 5. There wasn’t any reason for my five-plus year gap in attending races, just didn’t have the time, etc., but it just so happened to coincide with me not attending a NASCAR race during President Trump’s term in the White House.

I could tell just by watching the world in the time between 2015-2021 that folks had become more brazen and former President Trump was a major factor in this happening. The world is less civil than it used to be. I think former President Trump played a major role in that. If you’re a conservative I’m sure, you’ll probably disagree if you’ve made it this far. Thankfully when I attended Darlington last month, in the heart of Trump country, things weren’t too bad – but seeing certain things like fans wearing shirts saying “Fuck Joe Biden” made me feel a little bit less welcome in the NASCAR environment. Honestly just being a confessed liberal (even if it’s something that’s not tattooed on my forehead) I always felt a bit of an outcast at races.

Saturday, Oct. 2 should’ve been a great day for NASCAR. The Camping World Truck Series race earlier in the afternoon had been one by a first-time winner Tate Fogelman for an underfunded race team in an exciting finish, that unfortunately ended with him wrecking and having to go to the infield care center in an ambulance, instead of Victory Lane. The Xfinity Series race ended in the early evening a few laps earlier than scheduled when darkness approached the track and the leader of the race, Brandon Brown, also became a first-time winner for an underfunded team. Brown, who’s given his all to have a successful team, put on one helluva celebration, but when NBC Sports went to interview him what should’ve been a terrific moment for the sport was hijacked by fans in the grandstands just a few feet away from the interview with a loud and obnoxious “Fuck Joe Biden” chant – which has apparently been quite popular at some college football stadiums, as well, during the early part of the season – which is just a massive black eye for NASCAR.

The chant, which was later scrubbed technologically by NASCAR for its social media from the victory interview, just feeds into the stereotypes the sport has – those I’ve been fighting against for two decades. It’s not that I believe politics should be kept out of sports (although many NASCAR fans sticking up for these jerks chanting this vile thing do always cry about keeping them out of sports). There have been moments where I’ve approved of it – earlier I called Wallace heroic for his BLM stance. To me this Biden chant wasn’t just political, but more proof of a lack of civility in our society.

It’s been well over 24 hours since the chant during the post-race interview and as far as I’ve seen neither NASCAR nor NBC Sports has released a comment about it. I think that’s a bad move from the sport that frankly made a lot of ground in the last few years when it comes to trying to move the sport into the future and gain viewership, in general and with newer demographics.

Now I’m not going to stop watching NASCAR over this – that would be an overreaction like what some conservative fans did with football players kneeling in the NFL or basketball players protesting games over police brutality in the NBA. It wouldn’t do anything but take potential enjoyment away from myself. Also, I believe in the Kris Kristofferson lyric: “don’t let the bastards get you down.” So, I’m looking forward to watching the Talladega Cup Series race on Monday that was postponed from Sunday due to rain.

But I am sick of defending the sport when sometimes it seems many fans who follow it are frankly disgusting people. So, in the future when I’m asked how I can watch NASCAR I’ll probably stick to the “sports can’t be racist” line, but if asked about the fans I’ll probably have to adopt a “many of them are exactly what you think they are.”

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