How often do I get a chance to go to a NASCAR event and sit in the owners tent and stare at his wife's diamond crusted watch bored out of my skull? Not so often that I should say no when the chance comes up, which was why I went today and suffered through it. Bear in mind I went thinking it would be awful and boring to be at a car race, and I have no way to emphasize how much it was other than to say, it was really bad there and good to leave. But it's always interesting to see people who are passionate, and there wasn't a bit of irony to be found at Sears Point Speedway. The owner and his son, daughter and wife all had on team colors and cheered when their car came into view, and the tens of thousands of fans were on their feet. This is for a 350 mile race that goes around in a circle, and for which many fans come with scanners and headsets, to listen to the drivers talk to the pit crew, which I did briefly, and I assure you, they are not saying much besides a few clipped phrases you might expect.

Every few laps, someone crashes or their wheel flies off, and that slows things down for a while, while they vaccuum the track. The people there, as you might expect, are all white, mostly tatooed, and generally kind of blue collar. The admission price was 80 dollars and the merchandise for sale was all incredibly expensive, like 27 dollars for a baseball hat, so these people were deeply involved in what was going on around them. Plus you had to park a mile away and take a shuttle and stand in line and sit in traffic everywhere or stand in long lines. Plenty of people came in RVs and stay for three days, and travel around the country to each race, living in their RV. It is a mystifying subculture, that I can only say, after firsthand contact, is just another way I am alienated from America.

There were also tons of cops, state cops, sheriffs, National Guardsmen, armored helicoptors, and what appeared to be secret service blacked out SUVs, which was possibly because there was a rumor that John Kerry was coming, or that he was there, or might be there. He might have been there, since he has been campaigning around Northern California, or they might have had some threat level or something. All I know is there was law enforcement out in great numbers.

Of course it was torture, sitting outside in the heat watching incrdibly loud cars drive in circles. I feel the same about golf, football, baseball and plenty of other sports that millions of people feel the opposite way about. So maybe I'm wrong, and I should learn to see what is lovable about a car race, though for me the high point of the day was when the owners daughter offered me her ear plugs and I didn't want to use them, until my friend pointed out that the earwax on them was a billionaire's earwax, and was therefore pretty clean, though I didn't and just endured the roar. By the way, almost no one passes anyone, so the whole line of race cars pretty much keeps to the order it started in. So that isn't that thrilling to live through.