Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death

The invite came via text on Tuesday.

Are you busy Saturday?

I was intrigued, though cautious.

Wanna do some redneck shit?

Of course I was up for some redneck shit with my redneck friend I hadn't seen in months. We had a date. At Dells Raceway Park.

I opted to meet him at his mother's place in Portage as it had been a while since I'd seen her as well. With luck I'd also get to see his sister. My pal and I have been friends for nearly 36 years and I got to know his family early on. His parents and sister were like another family to me.

When I arrived I found that my friend's sister was at work so he, his mom, and I sat out back on the banks of the Wisconsin River and caught up. After a half an hour or so we were off to the races.

It being a redneck outing, the first thing we did was to get some liquid refreshment. We grabbed a couple Miller beers from a server who seemed quite chuffed with her tip. (They also had Yuengling available, oddly enough.) I don't think I'd ever been to a stockcar race before and, when we arrived, the racers were doing their qualifying laps. I kept hearing "Prepare to qualify!" from the old video game Pole Position in my head.

There were 2 announcers and each had a stereotypical Wisconsin accent. In addition to giving us lap-by-lap updates, their banter often involved friends and family giving it a distinctly local flavor along with the occasional comical comment that was family-friendly. Usually.

There were several different classes of cars and I learned that the way it works is that each class does a short race of 6 or 8 laps and then later they do a "feature race" that was 15-25 or, for one class, 50 laps. 

As the cars went round, they developed a cacophonous cadence. Relatively quiet as they sped away from us and were on the far side of the track and then, as they sped by us, the rumble built to a crescendo and my chest would cavitate. My friend and I bet on every race - $1, just like in Trading Places. For my part, I chose based on car color, usually. One guy had his car's number spray painted on one side and I found that I appreciated the lo-fi paint job. Another car I bet on was the lone station wagon. The family car had my confidence.

There were no major crashes, just a few spinouts and some busted quarter panels. In addition to the visceral thrill from the roar of the engines and the Hoosier tires, there were many moments when the cars were so close you'd swear they were touching. I found that these moments were actually few and far between. As they were making the turn before the straightaway in front of me, my eyes were fooled because of my POV. As they veered left there looked to be mere inches between the cars but, as they sped in front of me, it turned out they were several feet apart. Despite knowing this, I'd still get anxious every time the cars hit that turn.

I laughed when the announcers gave the names of the drivers along with their nicknames. While I cannot for the life of me recall any of the racing sobriquets, they were along the lines of Mike "The Killer" Lichtfeld and said in way that, if the context was removed, you'd swear it was from a WWE match. It sounded like fun rather than a sober declaration of victory for a warrior who had just gained favor with the emperor.

I learned from an ad on the track that Club La Mark is Madison's race car bar. The more you know.

While the stands weren't full, there was a good crowd out that night including a lot of families. I cannot recall the last time I was around so many guys wearing muscle t-shirts. One fellow closer to my age seated a couple benches down was clad in jeans, plaid shirt, baseball cap, and suspenders. In my mind he had spent the day in front of a table router making dovetail joints and was glad to get out of the shop for a night. Just the salt of the earth of Wisconsin, really. Nothing decadent or depraved to be found. It had been a while since I'd spent this much time with rural/small town folk and it gave me flashbacks to the days when I was living up north.

As far as I can recall, I broke even that night. It was a really fun time - cheap beer, fast cars, and good company. No doubt I'll be going again.