LEEDS – In a sea of black and red, the electric green stood out.
People flocked to the tractor trailer sporting the color. They marveled. They stared. They snapped photos. They crowded around the ropes as if royalty were near.
In a way, that was true, at least to the 53,555 racing fans who descended on the Barber Motorsports Park, just outside Birmingham, Sunday.
After all, Danica Patrick, the first woman to win an Indy car race and the media darling of auto racing, was on site.
A buzz filled the air, separate from the revving engines and squealing tires, and it was not entirely Patrick’s doing.
Talladega Superspeedway, the 175,000-seat, 2.66-mile behemoth east of Birmingham, was not the crown jewel of Alabama auto racing for the day.
NASCAR, the big show for racing, was not on tap.
Rather, the Indy Racing League, which says it has the fastest races on Earth, had come to Alabama for the first time.
‘Can you smell that?’
The parking lot at the track was not much different from what one might expect at an event drawing tens of thousands: an open field laced with mud.
As the racing faithful – and plenty of curious newcomers – walked toward the centerpiece of the 740-acre site, they hauled coolers, clutched pictures of their favorite drivers and stared at the 16-turn track that would be a place of glory for some and heartbreak for others.
Some signed waivers so that they could get closer to the track and its smells of burning rubber and spent oil.
Others wandered a hill by the track, buying cotton candy, shaved ice, hot dogs and beer by the truckload.
In the pit area, as some fans watched, clinging to the chain-link fence, the drivers and their crews prepared. Lug nuts were tightened, the electric wrench’s sound filling the air, cars were polished, and people prayed.
Around the complex, black-and-white fliers advertising the “Indy Racing League Ministry” dotted the doors and poles. Early Sunday, clergy had conducted services for Catholics and Protestants, and as the green flag neared, a chaplain wandered the pit area, offering to pray.
“Do you have anything you’d like to pray about now?” he said.
Starting the engines
Race days are far from small events on dirt tracks in rural counties. They are media – and money – magnets, and the prelude to the sound of speeding cars is an orchestrated, camera-friendly affair.
Charles Barkley, the 1993 MVP of the NBA and a Leeds native, was the grand marshal, shaking hands with each racer before the green flag.
The military sent four fighter jets streaking overhead, and two parachutists performed in the sky.
The crowd, unlike those sometimes seen at football games, came to a halt when a country star belted out the national anthem. The voice of Alabama football’s Eli Gold resonated throughout the park.
And, of course, the people prayed.
And then the engines started.
About 1 hour, 57 minutes and more than 200 miles later, Helio Castroneves of Brazil shot through the finish line as an official waved the checkered flag. The second-place finisher, Scott Dixon, was 0.5703 seconds behind.
The 17-race season never slows, though. After the race, Dixon sharpened his focus on next Sunday’s competition in California.
“We are looking forward to Long Beach,” he said.
A day in the pits … and, ever briefly, on the track
Before Sunday, I thought little of auto racing. I thought it involved minimal strategy and nominal athleticism.
But, when Dana Lewis, the social media manager for The Crimson White, offered me the opportunity to travel with her to Leeds for the inaugural Indy race in Alabama, I took up the invitation.
I met Charlie Kimball, a driver in the Indy Lights Series, the minor leagues of Indy racing. He offered an extraordinary, stomach-lurching opportunity: the chance to ride in the pace car for a lap as it circled the track before the race.
I didn’t know what I was getting into. As I stood on the side of the track, I watched the Honda Accords serving as pace cars hurling around the course. To the naked eye from a distance, they did not look to be going much faster than a typical car on the interstate.
Soon, after signing my life away, it was my turn. I climbed into the back of the Accord, which had been most recently occupied by Taylor Hicks of “American Idol” fame, and an Indy official told me to make absolutely certain my seatbelt was buckled.
We cruised down pit lane at 45 mph, the maximum. As soon as we passed the pit cone, Kimball accelerated, calmly discussing his plan of attack for the course as he drove.
We swung around turns, danced along the edge of the track, reached speeds of more than 120 mph, and heard Kimball’s girlfriend threaten to kill him after a particularly perilous curve.
As Kimball maneuvered the car, the g-forces made Dana and me simultaneously cling to our cameras and our seats as we suppressed that nervous laughter that people sometimes force on roller coaster rides.
As we pulled into the pit area, the car slowing to a more leisurely pace, I felt my heart trying to catch up with me from one of the early turns.
In the course of that brief ride, as I watched Kimball’s reflexes and felt the raw power of the car, and throughout a day on pit row, I developed a better understanding of auto racing. I’ll admit I still don’t follow the thought process of merely watching fast cars, but I can’t fault the people who yearn to drive them.
