Lowe’s: The mecca of auto racing

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 9:56 a.m.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Anyone who doubts that this is NASCAR's mecca need only take a seat at the Waffle House a mile from the airport.

The chain restaurant, a Southern tradition, features a two-sided laminated menu crammed with food items that will drive your cholesterol count above 500. Customers are scorned by the help if they eat their grits plain.

To celebrate the Oct. 8 race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in suburban Concord, the waitresses wore T-shirts and caps favoring drivers Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. As for the new kid on the block, Las Vegan Kurt Busch, the waitresses never heard of him. Not in Earnhardt country, the region that produced the seven-time Winston Cup champion.

Seated at the counter was a conspiracy theorist. His pickup truck sported the bumper sticker, "Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun." He claimed to know things NASCAR didn't want him to know, such as Earnhardt will never be allowed to win an eighth championship as long as fellow seven-time champ Richard Petty is still alive.

Cheap(er) seats

Charlotte, an emerging banking center still dominated by Big Tobacco, has more paved ovals than liberal Democrats. It is a God-fearing metropolis that names its main thoroughfares after the likes of preacher Billy Graham.

Every NASCAR race, including the UAW/GM Quality 500 in Concord, is accompanied by a flea market that extends the bounds of silliness. The featured game outside Lowe's was a used race car tire that served as a basketball hoop. The object was to shoot a tiny red ball into the tire as it was raised and lowered by a hydraulic lift.

One vendor specialized in used race tires. Another sold photos of drivers, with tire sidewalls as frames. Also for sale were porcelain candle holders with driver photos that looked like miniature shrines.

The racetrack is owned by Bruton Smith, who also owns Las Vegas Motor Speedway. From a Las Vegan's perspective, one thing to complain about is the ticket price. Not theirs but ours.

This is NASCAR's version of new math. For the UAW/GM Quality 500, which was run on a 1.5-mile tri-oval, same as in Las Vegas, the fans got 334 laps for a top grandstand ticket price of $113. In Las Vegas, the fan gets only 267 laps for a top grandstand price of $130.

About the only rap against Lowe's is the width of the seats. They were designed for the likes of Mayberry's own Don Knotts, not today's beefy NASCAR fans. They are so small you cannot find your seat once you stand. To sit in one of those seats is to contort your body in ways you did not think possible.

But the racetrack is superb.

Bank on it

With 24-degree banks in the turns -- twice as steep as in Las Vegas -- a bump in turn 3 and a narrow chute out of turn 4, the track forces exciting side-by-side driving. The UAW/GM race, won by Winston Cup points leader Bobby Labonte, produced more than 40 lead changes.

But Lowe's Motor Speedway alone does not make the Charlotte area NASCAR's mecca. Almost all of the sport's garish-looking race cars are built and painted in garages scattered around the speedway and points north.

There are good garage tours, lousy tours and no tours. One of the best tours is the self-guided walk through Terry Labonte's shop at the massive Hendrick Motorsports complex in Harrisburg. One gets to view mechanics close at work along with six versions of the number 5 car in various stages of repair, including the body that was being fitted for last Sunday's race at Talladega. One was struck by the cleanliness of the garage floors, along with the aroma of fresh paint.

In the same complex is the garage for Rainbow Warrior Jeff Gordon. Again the public gets to see about a half-dozen cars, along with such pep banners as "Refuse to Lose," and the "Warrior Creed," a list of do's and don'ts in the pursuit of victory.

But the Gordon shop is an example of the secrecy that runs throughout this sport. Most of the actual work on cars is done in back areas of the shop closed from public view.

Top secrets

Sun cartoonist Mike Smith and I caught wind from one race shop that Ray Evernham, Gordon's former crew chief and owner of a new Dodge racing team, assigned garage employees different levels of security clearance, complete with door lock combinations. We learned that the most secretive aspect of race car construction is the engine shop. If you want a tour of one, you'll have to ante up and buy a race team.

What we did learn was that is costs about $120,000 to build a good race car, that the sponsors have first crack at designing those garish paint schemes, and that some teams are turning to engineers with doctorates for help.

Some garages are in quaint, rural surroundings. The Richard Childress Racing facility, home of the shops for Earnhardt and Mike Skinner, is in the one-stoplight unincorporated town of Welcome. One billboard in town shows a row of rifle-toting police officers who make up the criminals' welcoming committee.

At the Earnhardt shop tour the guide warns that visitors will not be welcome in Welcome if they attempt to get autographs from the mechanics. With that said, fans of the "Intimidator" practically leaped out of their Earnhardt jackets when none other than His Highness Childress happened on our tour, and invited us for a close-up of one of the famed black number 3s.

Most of the garages are in an industrial complex in Mooresville, the so-called "Race City USA" about 20 miles north of Charlotte. The complex looks more like Silicon Valley, with mirrored windows and professional landscaping, than a place to build race cars. If one needs proof that NASCAR has come far since its moonshine-running days, this is it.

Drivers such as Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace also have museums filled with trophies and cars. The Earnhardt museum is particularly opulent, with an entryway reminiscent of an art gallery.

There are, of course, plenty of examples of the sport's tacky side.

Petty's beef

Exhibit Number One is the Richard Petty Museum in Level Cross. The museum celebrating "The King" actually has a freezer where the special was a box of King's Cut beef patties for $2.25.

With NASCAR now making attempts to integrate the all-white sport, someone may want to tell Petty to tone down some of the photographs in his museum. One such photo shows Petty, Benny Parsons and other NASCAR luminaries seated at a table in front of two large Confederate banners.

The sport's future belongs to fresh-faced kids such as Busch, who cut his teeth on the 3/8-mile paved oval across from Nellis Air Force Base. Going into the UAW/GM event, his third career NASCAR race, Busch was a 500-1 shot in local sports books. That means he was given as much chance of winning as any opponent of North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.

So was this kid a nervous wreck before the race? Actually, quite the opposite.

Busch league

Less than two hours before the green flag dropped, an excited female fan rushed up to Busch in the infield and asked the young driver to autograph the shirt she was wearing.

Pen in hand, he shot back, "Sorry, but I don't have enough ink." He then made a boxer's pose as she attempted in vain to get that autograph. Busch was cool as a cucumber but his Roush Racing handler was not, and whisked the driver into his trailer.

A few hours later he finished a surprising 13th in a 43-driver field, just two spots behind local icon Earnhardt.

The moral of this story is that even in mecca, Busch will not be a 500-1 shot for long.

Steve Kanigher is a Sun reporter who once a year makes a NASCAR pilgrimage. He can be reached at 259-4075 or by e-mail at steve@lasvegassun.com.

archive