Nothing like a Dixie Cup weekend in ‘Dega

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 10:49 a.m.

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Let's get one thing straight. It's not Talladega, Alabama. That's way too long. It's Dega, Bama. Everything longer than four letters is abbreviated here.

Another thing. Talladega isn't a racetrack. It's an area code. At 2.66 miles a lap, it is the longest track on the NASCAR circuit. Pit crews have to dial long distance to reach their drivers. The infield is so big that if it were turned into rangeland, Strip hotels wouldn't have to go anywhere else for their prime rib.

The track is just off Interstate 20 about 40 miles east of Birmingham in the Heart of Dixie. The travel guides say Andrew Jackson defeated the Indians here in 1813, and Jackson did it without Pedro Martinez, who had an easier time with the 1999 Indians.

When one thinks of enticing Southern cities to visit, Birmingham does not come to mind. The most remarkable thing about the airport is that the restrooms double as tornado shelters. There's no French Quarter. No Beale Street. And they don't have a starting rotation of Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Millwood.

Birmingham does have the Bartow Arena, named after the guy who departed UCLA for a school, UAB, with fewer letters. They also know their barbeque. One of the best places in town is Dreamland. As the saying goes, their ribs ARE bad to the bone. About the time the full rack of beef ribs and half loaf of white bread arrived at the table where I was sitting with Sun cartoonist Mike Smith, Bama was thrashing Ole Miss on television.

The table was one of those laminated specials with advertisements for local businesses, including a guy nicknamed Bubba who specialized in air conditioning. Most eye-catching was the scantily clad model lounging on a tanning bed. The walls of Dreamland were covered with the obligatory license plates, bumper stickers, Bama pennants and autographed photos of near-famous athletes and overrated sports broadcasters. The house rules were simply stated on a neon light: No Farting.

No tourist traps

There is not much to see on the highway to Talladega. The route is so heavily wooded -- it is part of the foothill province of the Appalachians -- that one wonders whether they're shooting wild pigs or distilling moonshine nearby. Call it a Deliverance moment, but some stereotypes die hard.

For the politically inclined there were the occasional "No Lottery" bumper stickers, a reference to the proposed state lottery that was defeated by Alabama voters earlier this month. There's not much to say regarding Alabama politics. George Wallace about sums it up. One of his gubernatorial successors, Fob James, reinstated chain gangs. He was so off the wall he quit the National Governors Association. And the other governors cheered.

Billboards are not exactly plentiful along I-20, which is actually a good thing. It's not like Interstate 15, where motorists are reminded of inexpensive Las Vegas hotel rooms every 100 yards. The only motor sports-related billboard on the way to Talladega tells us that driver Rusty Wallace abides by only two directives: go fast and turn left. The real purpose of the billboard is to peddle Miller Lite, which is what many race fans probably were guzzling on their way to the track.

Just as newlyweds spray paint "Just Married" on their rear windshields, Alabama race fans are not to be outdone. We saw "Talladega or Bust." Or the number 3 for Dale Earnhardt or "6" for Mark Martin. Others showed their driver loyalties by sticking flags with race car numbers out their windows. Some obnoxious fans stuck themselves out the windows and taunted motorists loyal to other racers. One guy even painted his camper to match Earnhardt's black race car.

The closest thing to Las Vegas flash was an electronic sign from a church near the track urging motorists to attend morning services because "Jesus Loves Race Fans."

Clay feats

Digressing for a moment, it would be foolhardy not to mention the "other" track, the Talladega Short Track. This one-third mile red clay oval is what genuine Southern racing is all about. There are no retaining walls along the steep-banked turns or backstretch. When modifieds ran off the edge, which happened frequently, they simply disappeared from view, only to reappear later down the track.

The ratty-looking garages in the infield have the appearance of a cheap flea market. The fans sit on reddish cinder blocks. The aisles are littered with cigar butts and boiled peanut shells. I warn against eating boiled peanuts unless you have the constitution of an ox. For T-shirt collectors, there is the official Alabama Dirt Shirt, dyed from the same red clay used on the racing surface.

This dirt track has slightly different rules than other racetracks because there are no rules. They treat yellow caution lights as if they're running under green, and they treat red lights like they're under yellow. These guys are so rough that NASCAR Rookie of the Year-to-be Tony Stewart, making a guest appearance to pump up ticket sales last Friday, failed to qualify for the main event because competitors forced him to spin out twice in his preliminary heat.

Museum pieces

Also on Talladega's considerable grounds is the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and Museum. Anybody who can successfully navigate the Spaghetti Bowl ought to qualify for inclusion here but only names such as Yarborough, Unser and "Fireball" are enshrined. There's a shrine to the late Davey Allison, who lost his life in a tragic helicopter crash in Talladega's infield. Just about every famous NASCAR driver has a car displayed here, such as Richard Petty's famous STP Plymouth and Earnhardt's first Winston Cup vehicle.

Even Ricky Craven is represented, though his vehicle is a junk heap, the result of an horrific crash at Talladega that was photographed frame by frame.

Talladega's grass parking fields are magnets for thousands of campers and motor homes. I hadn't seen this many in one location since passing through Quartzsite, Ariz., where no one is home because there are no homes. The Talladega scene is not as rowdy as the infield of the Kentucky Derby, where women plied with too many mint juleps flash for men too drunk to notice. But there is no shortage of Rebel flags attached to the campers. For the geographically challenged, we're not talking about the UNLV Rebels.

Out of loyalty to American-made cars, there were practically no Honda or Toyota drivers to be found. There were lots of expensive pickup trucks, some hauling sofas. Some sofas were hauling fans. Some of the fans were hauling beers. The only Cadillac spotted on our trip had Nevada plates, and he didn't go to the race. I was somewhat surprised by the lack of cars that looked like they were driven in Dukes of Hazard episodes.

The souvenir area has the same garish T-shirts and hats found at all other NASCAR venues, including Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But there is a far higher percentage of fans at Talladega wearing those splashy garments. That's why you need sunglasses here to protect your eyes. Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon merchandise was by far the most popular. The number of fans wearing gear from Jerry Nadeau, Ed Berrier and Derrike Cope you could count on less than one thumb.

Whine and cheese

It may be hard to believe that NASCAR is trying to appeal to, shall we say, higher income brackets. That's a no brainer with ticket prices topping out at $100. That's more than many past Super Bowls. That's also about as much as Kathy Lee Gifford pays all her factory workers combined each month.

But check out some of the tents near the souvenir area and one has to wonder about the type of activities NASCAR believes its fans enjoy. There's the tent where the fan takes a bow and shoots arrows at a projection screen that shows deer and elk in a variety of "hunting scenarios." Or the tent where two fans, both armed with high-powered vacuum cleaners, compete to see who is fastest at sucking up a basket of marbles and then using the equipment to pop a balloon.

The view inside the track is awesome. One is struck by the two-tiered grandstands that run continuously along the tri-oval for more than a mile. From turn 4 you need good binoculars to identify the cars in turns 1 and 2. The 33-degree banking in the turns, three times as steep as in Las Vegas, coupled with the relatively flat straightaways makes it look as though the track was contorted by an earthquake.

Talladega is one of only two NASCAR tracks that is so fast the cars are required to run on carburetor restrictor plates to reduce their horsepower. Otherwise, the cars would go so fast they would all end up looking like Craven's mess in the museum. Even so, cars qualified for last Sunday's Winston 500 race at speeds of more than 198 miles an hour.

Earnhardt rules

The 188-lap race itself was one for the ages, with more than 30 lead changes. The leader was rarely a car length ahead of the pursuers. In the end it was Earnhardt, the master of restrictor-plate racing, who took the checkered flag by about one-tenth of a second over Winston Cup points leader Dale Jarrett.

It was an enriching experience for these Las Vegas fans in more ways than one because we had placed a wager on Earnhardt at 12-to-1 that more than paid for our race tickets. Who said good things in life weren't free?

There was the fear that with 200,000 people in attendance we would not be able to get out of the parking lot before the new millennium. But Talladega is not Las Vegas. Alabamans know how to move traffic. It wasn't only that they had more exits. They also used more lanes as well as the shoulders.

OK. It still took two hours to get from the track parking lot to Birmingham, but I seem to recall more than one race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway where it took more than two hours just to get out of the parking lot.

Naturally, one inebriated fan was driving home in a camper with the spray-painted message: "If you can't draft with me, get out of the way." The poor sap attracted more attention than he figured. He won a ticket but it was from an Alabama state trooper.

Steve Kanigher in an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Sun and he knows a little about everything, including Winston Cup Stock Car racing. Reach him at steve@vegas.com or 259-4075.

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