Carolyn Brewster: What’s on your NASCAR bucket list?
Fans watch the NASCAR Victory Lap during champions week in Las Vegas last year. NASCAR holds its annual Sprint Cup Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas.
// Archive, NASCAR Illustrated
FAN COMMENTARY
I didn’t need to see the 2007 Morgan Freeman-Jack Nicholson movie, “The Bucket List,” to embrace the idea of listing things to experience and places to visit within my lifetime. Seems that everyone has caught on to the concept, making it a popular pastime.
Friends refer to personal bucket lists and cities create bucket lists as a way to drive tourism. Got me thinking – what’s on my NASCAR bucket list?
For starters, I’d like to ride in a car on a race track. I’m not picky. It could be my car, a rental car, a pace car, a car from the Petty Driving Experience. The vehicle can go racing fast or crawl along at a snail’s pace. And the track? I’ll take any oval on the circuit. I’ve walked along the banking of plenty of tracks but have never taken a turn sitting on rubber. I’m convinced it must be a completely different perspective.
Next on my NASCAR bucket list is to taste the famed Martinsville hotdog. The red processed meat shoved between two pillows of bleached white flour and smothered with chili, onions and slaw is legendary in the world of racing concessions. Can one truly consider themselves a NASCAR fan without having partaken of this iconic classic?
I’d love to check attending the NASCAR Sprint Cup awards banquet from my bucket list. It is amusing to see drivers, crewmen and their spouses all dolled up. This will be the second year it will be open to a limited number of fans, so hopefully a few diehards can check it off their lists, too. Even if the emcee bombs, it would certainly be a night to remember.
And wrapping up my NASCAR bucket list is a goal I know is common with many fans – to visit every track on the circuit. Considering the Cup series has tracks sprinkled from coast to coast, this is most definitely a long-term objective.
I’ve heard many variations of this ambition. Some fans simply require a picture outside each track. Others must attend a race there. My friend’s requirement is to physically stand on the pavement.
Me? I just need to see a car on the track to check if off my list. So qualifying, testing or a race all work for me.
Being a fan is great in its entirety. But to qualify goals you have makes being a fan less passive than just watching a race on television. And it’s fun to cross something off that potential inventory of happy racing ambitions.
So what’s on your NASCAR bucket list?
