How many of you guys grew up around NASCAR?

Question

my grandfather drove for NASCAR and my fathers went dirt racing! as a kid it is hard to go everyweekend with your dad and watch him race when you want to play with your friends but i am thankful my dad made me go and i love nascar to this day! i love to race myself up at m40 and new paris it is a load of fun! someday and i mean someday i hope to make it to NASCAR but for now i like to have fun while i am racing!

i did race on a dirt track like my dad but i really stink at it! i love cars i love going fast and by god i love the smell of exhaust, not to mention the roar of an engine is the best thing in life and i am proude to be a part of NASCAR!

Answer 1

I grew up watching it. I will be the big 3 0 in September. I started watching in 1980, I was 2. My mom has pictures of me watching the race.

Answer 2

My grandfather was a die hard racing fan and when my parents got divorced we went to live with my grandparents and there it started.  My grandpa would tape the races and watch them over again weeks later (as if the winner was going to change!) I guess I remember watching races with him when I was a child.  He was handicapped and could never drive himself, but he had a model business at all of the local racetracks and was an official. Grandma, Mom and Uncles ran the business out of the back of a station wagon while he did the officialling (so not a word I know).  I always remember him yelling about Dale Sr (he hated him, said he was a cheater and couldn't drive clean) and building Richard Petty model cars while I was growing up.  He died when I was 9 so I fell out of it again until I met my husband when I was 16.  He got me back into it and now we got to at least one race a year.  h**l I even bought him a Richard Petty Driving Experience at Daytona for his wedding present.  So I guess you could say I grew up around Nascar, stopped and then grew up some more with it.

Answer 3

Not around NASCAR, but I grew up around Dirt Late Model racing.

Answer 4

I didn't.  My buddy's dad was always a BIG Earnhardt Sr. fan and that's kind of how I got into it....then one of my dad's buddy's gave me a Goodwrench hat when I was little boy...I was hooked then.

Answer 5

My dad got me into NASCAR we always had to watch the race and being daddy's girl I'd always root for whoever he liked until I got older and found out that it was alot more fun to root against who he liked so we could argue about who would win. That's still true to this day ( on the most part lol).  My dad also did some dirt track racing when I was younger so I guess you could say that I've grown up around racing in one way or another through the years.

Answer 6

My family has been watching NASCAR for along time. They got me hooked!

Answer 7

I grew up with my godparent's sons racing at a local track.  Matt Kenseth raced against one son and if I remember correctly back in the 80's, the other one raced against Mark Martin.  The one who raced in the 80's, currently works for JGR and previously worked at Cheater's 'R' Us (I mean HMS).  I love NASCAR and unfortunately can tell you useless facts about NASCAR as well.

Answer 8

i grew up around nhra and street drags.  in sacramento, there wasn't much to do with nascar back in the early 70s, but the drag strip was always hoppin'.  my step-dad raced vintage willy's trucks, and we hung around the speedway a lot.

then we got a new-step dad (the other one lost a race, so we didn't like him anymore ;-)  

we moved around a lot as he was in the air force.  he was a southern boy - cajun from southern mississippi.  he liked working on cars, 60's vettes in particular, and we'd watch a nascar and indy races fairly often on tv.

throughout the 80s and 90s, nobody i knew liked nascar - neither my family nor the stuffy academics in college (ucla) and grad school (ucsd).  and being an internet sysadmin in the 90s, i didn't run across too many fans there either...

only in the past 10 years did i go back to a couple of major nhra events - both being the winternationals here in pomona.   i'd go to the street drags with my brother - he raced various classes there as well as vintage nhra dragsters.  he took me back to the ear-splitting, eye-burning, nitro-reeking, flame-throwing, heart-stopping thunder of top fuel and funny cars.  

and then i moved to vegas.  i made some friends who were knowledgable nascar fans and watched everything... then my first live nascar experience was at lvms back in 2003 i think.  from then on, there was no turning back. i'll still watch for my old favorites in nhra (go john, and ashley!), and a little indy (go danica!), but i'm a nascar fanatic for life and have been since that first sam's town 300 and uaw daimler chrysler 400 the next day, with seats down on the infield bleachers in turns one and two.  i liked it so much that i even put up with the traffic, heat, and bad seats for the past couple of years at fontana.

now i'm lucky enough to work for a people-powered search engine as their "nascar" guy, creating content for their nascar-related pages (and a few other motorsports).  soon, i'm supposed to start up their "live sports coverage" for nascar races.  it won't pay nearly what i got in the 90s during the internet boom, but man will it be great to get paid to watch races...

ps. jaynarie, no need to apologize - your post was coherent to me - but that's not saying much ;-)

Answer 9

Not I, I'm an only child of a single workaholic mother, it was my husband's family that loved nascar, I started watching it when I first started dating him, I was 14, loved it ever since!

Answer 10

I did.

My dad worked on cars, never drove them.  He says it's too dam* hot.  Or else he would drive them.

My parents divorced when I was 5.  On Sunday, my dad would not take us home until the NASCAR race was over.  So, I had to watch and didn't have much choice!

I've always loved cars. My sister and I bicker regularly about who will get my dad's 66 GTO when he dies (we're pathetic, I know.  I don't wish him to die, just when he does, the car is MINE!!)

I didn't start voluntarily watching NASCAR on TV until I was in high school.  I refused to admit that I liked it and was a closet fan.  None of the other girls liked anything about cars or racing, so I pretended to do the same.  Then, I grew up and realized that I didn't care what they thought.  

I openly love the sport so much now, that I am going to both races this weekend alone.  My dad and his friends were supposed to come down and now they can't.  So, I sold my set of 4 tickets and bought better tickets for just me.  I refuse to miss the race even if it means I now have to go alone!  Not that it matters much, you can't talk to the person next to you anyway.  It's too loud (plus I have to listen to Kasey on the scanner!!)

Answer 11

I did went to my first drag race when i was 7 months with my family. My family then found circle track racing fun and started to race those, to this day they still race and i still find myself dragging my friends and myself to the track to watch and the smell is home to me:)

I love it and i'm lucky that i've had race-cars in my backyard since before i could walk

Answer 12

Yeah, my dad raced on the drag strips before I was born. Think I went to a dirt race when I was 3 on my birthday, and been watching NASCAR since I can remember. Started out as a Rusty Wallace fan lol...then in 1998 went to Bristol race and Rusty wrecked and Gordon won. I didn't like Gordon then but he started growing on me ever since, because the fans booed him and he still won. Then I stopped liking Rusty for some reason and pulled for Gordon more. Now I pull for most of Hendrick and Kyle Busch. Denny Hamlin's good too. Oh yeah, and I used to race Go karts and won about half those races and a points championship my first year but it was just too expensive since you really got nothing in return.

Answer 13

i grew up going to the local dirt tracks around detroit. our neighbor sponsored a car at these tracks. i remember a driver named ray neece that dominated at mt.clemens race track. benny parsons usually finished behind him and danny byrd. everyone in nascar teased benny about his weight, but when i moved to nc. he and i laughed about how they had to make the window openings bigger for neece to fit through.

Answer 14

not that involved would have loved it, I too breathe this sport...grew up watching it

Answer 15

I'm in South Florida, and my parents are from Cuba.  I was not exposed to NASCAR in the least until I was about 30 years old. Kind of around that time I got sick and in the process I had to re-evaluate my life. I re-embraced my childhood hobby of collecting diecasts, and then went a step further and embraced my love of cars in general.  A friend of mine tuned me into the WRC and we played rally games on the PC and watched the WRC races on Speedtv.  I was into it, but I didn't follow it on a weekly basis.  Then I turned on a NASCAR race, much to my friend's dismay. I was hooked. I started buying NASCAR racing games, and I'm now hooked on that as well.  And, of course, I collect NASCAR diecasts.  Sometimes I think there are only about 10 NASCAR fans in Miami.  It gets lonely. I've never sat down and watched a race with someone who is into it. :-(

Answer 16

I got hooked on racing when I was 13. It's been downhill ever since. I was very lucky to live within bike riding distance of Thompson Speedway, CT. I got to see the best Nascar Modified drivers in the business battle it out every weekend. That was a long time ago, but I'm still heavy into motorsports and race when I can. The current economy sure doesn't help.

Answer 17

I avoided a chance to work in a pit crew, because I wanted to continue my education in the automotive technical field. I'm glad I did, because I learned a lot and met some very cool people. But I love NASCAR racing and believe it's the epitome of motorsports.

Answer 18

I grew up around cars but in 7th grade with no outside influence, I suddenly picked up Nascar. Being around cars had nothing to do with it as I see them as completely separate. I would love to be involved in Nascar but I really couldn't tell you why I got involved. It really is in your blood. I really want to buy a race car because there is not better feeling, even if it's only on amusement park go-karts or video games. I love the rhythm and catching and passing aspect of it.

Answer 19

I got into when i was about 10 now 25 years later still watching it every weekend and hit the tracks when ever family and money permit. Also love the dirt track we live 15 min from one and i try to take my 8 yeal old as often as we can.. Used to race street stock in orange county NY till a crash took me off the track fro quite a long time, but thinking of getting back into it again.

Answer 20

wow cool i race to and i am a huge nascar fan. when i was 9we moved to cannada from georgia then my mom got hooked to raceing so my dad bought her a racecar for mothersday then the next mothers day the track was closing so my dad bought the track for her so i was around racing for a while. and i became a nascar fan cuse i went with my dad to all these nascar parties trhese guys had and i was allowed to drivwe my moms racecar at the age of 10 and i was the track anouncer to. so i was kind of sucked min to being a nascar fan bu i love racing and i hope one day i can make it to nascar.

Answer 21

My dad used to take us to a little dirt track on Eight Mile Road on the North side of Detroit in the early fifty's. Then I started working part time for Coke's at age 12 at a gas station, the owner built and raced cars at Mt. Clemens Speedway, MI. My dad would let me go with him to watch him race. I remember sneaking into the Michigan State Fairgrounds when I was about 14, maybe 1957, and watching a stock car race sanctioned by USAC on it's one mile dirt oval. I think it was 200 laps. Benny Parsons finished third I think it was. Watched Parsons race at Mt. Clemens a few years later before he went to NASCAR. Been hooked ever since.

Answer 22

I didn't. My family did not watch it, but I decided to watch it once (in 2005) and got hooked :D

Answer 23

Yeah did  !!

Answer 24

I did, grew up in Kannapolis NC, Martha and Ralph Earnhardt were neighbors, my dad and uncle worked on local race tracks, they were crew chiefs and pit crew members, they both went on to become Nascar officials. We moved to closer to Rockingham where my grandparents were later on. I've been to all the tracks in the south, even most of the dirt ones when I was young.. Darlington and The Rock are my alltime favorite tracks. I even remember Charlotte Motor Speedway before it changed to Lowes, it was just a plain old simple track back in the day.. My mom would never let me go to the races until I was 10 y/o, my first race was the 1964 World 600.. I live in Calif now and still a life long fan and always will be..

Go Dale Jr & Hms