NASCAR Anonymous: Anonymous No More

Introduction

Are you a NASCAR fan on race days but feel the need to hide your passion for the sport from your family, friends, and co-workers?

Do you make excuses to watch races by yourself, then scour the sports pages for scores from the "stick-and-ball" sports to have something to discuss around the water cooler?

Do you neglect family obligations on race days—obligations such as church, your children, or whatever "insignificant thing" your significant other wants to do?

Have you ever spent your rent money or mortgage payment on limited-edition die-casts of your favorite driver's special paint schemes or on autographed used tires?

Below are 25 questions to help you decide whether you are indeed a repressed NASCAR fan.

If so, the suggested "10 Turns on the Road Course to Self-Discovery" that follow will help you discover and get in touch with your "inner NASCAR fan" in positive ways, not in the negative ways that have wracked you with remorse and guilt for far too long.

Remember, there is no disgrace in owning up to the fact that you too may be a NASCAR fan...

The Questionnaire

1. Within the past few years, have you ever heard the word "Bush" on TV or on the radio and immediately asked yourself "Kurt or Kyle" before figuring out the discussion was about George?

2. Within the past year, have you heard someone say "President Bush" and corrected them by saying "President Nationwide?"

3. Have you ever found yourself "diamonding the corner" on a cloverleaf on-ramp to see how much you can gain on the car ahead of you?

4. Have you ever tried a "crossover move" to get back around someone who just passed you?

5. Do you often catch yourself "drafting up" to the car or truck in front of you on the freeway to see if it really works?

6. Do you ever experiment with "floating it into the corner" instead of "driving it in deep" to see if it helps your car "roll through the corner and drive off on exit" better?

7. Have you ever passed someone to the right and thought to yourself that you were "passing them on the outside?"

8. Have you ever been in a wreck and tried blaming the other driver for not seeing that you "clearly had your nose in there" and he shouldn't have "cut across your nose" like that?

9. Have you ever been in a wreck and tried blaming the other driver for not backing off when he didn't "clearly have his nose in there" arguing that you were simply "holding your line?"

10. When cut off on the freeway, do you ever think of retaliating by moving to the driver's outside and trying to "take the wind off his back" in order to get him "a little loose" through the next bend in the road?

11. Are many of your friends named "Junior?"

12. Are your favorite words in the national anthem the last four—"Gentlemen, start your engines?"

13. Do you often daydream of bump-drafting (or slam-drafting) the car ahead of you?

14. Have you ever taken a corner a little too fast, slid the back tires, caught it, then thought, "Man, this car is loose?"

15. Do you ever pretend that the highway patrol car ahead of you on the freeway is the pace car, and as soon as he pulls onto an off-ramp you think "green green green" or "boogity boogity boogity?"

16. When you see a car with a bumper sticker of your least favorite driver, do you drive a little harder to pass it so the driver can see the bumper sticker on the back of your truck?

17. Have you ever kept your right foot "squarely on the throttle" through winding turns and "dragged the brake pedal" with your left to keep your engine wound up?

18. Do you find yourself using the words "camber," "caster," and "Ackerman" in inappropriate places in a conversation?

19. Do you ever find yourself laughing uncontrollably whenever you see someone wearing sandals and think to yourself "there's a toe out that needs to be toed back in?"

20. Have you ever spoken into your Bluetooth headset while driving and pretended that you were talking to your own personal crew chief?

21. Before getting on the freeway at the beginning of a long road trip, do you ever zig-zag a little to warm or scrub your tires?

22. Does seeing those "AAA" stickers on cars make you immediately think of David Ragan, Mark Martin, or the Auto Club Speedway?

23. Do you ever put your car in neutral, cut if off, then coast for a while pretending that you're near the end of a race and trying to win on fuel mileage?

24. Have you ever approached a stoplight and slowed down half a block early, backing off the car ahead of you so you can get a good run on him when the light turns green?

25. Have you ever entered a gas station only to realize you didn't need gas or didn't have any money and mentally dismissed it as a "pass-through penalty?"

As a tie-breaker question in case you aren't yet sure:

Have you ever thought about getting a carbon-fiber seat for your car and a HANS device to wear while driving?

If you answered yes to more questions than you care to admit, it's okay. Many of us had most of the same thoughts and took years, even decades, to admit we were NASCAR fans.

The Road Course to Self-Discovery

There is hope. Many of us have surrendered to our passion for NASCAR and in doing so began our path around the "road course to self-discovery"—a course of recovery from the many years through which we had hidden or repressed our feelings for NASCAR.

To do so we took the "10 Turns on the Road Course to Self-Discovery:"

1. Admitted to ourselves that we were NASCAR fans and that our lives were more satisfying because of it.

2. Came to believe that the power of NASCAR, embodied in men like Mike Helton and Brian France, would eventually restore NASCAR to sanity.

3. Made the decision to turn our keys and our credit cards over to our significant others before drinking at the sports bar on Sundays, or Saturdays when appropriate.

4. Made a searching inventory of our garages and attics, looking for collectibles and other memorabilia we had hidden from our significant others when we first got together.

5. Admitted to other NASCAR fans the exact incidents where we and/or our favorite drivers might have been wrong.

6. Began to discuss our NASCAR fanhood openly with our family, friends, and co-workers.

7. Asked our significant others to help us with our shortcomings as fans—especially the shortcomings in our die-cast collections.

8. Listed all the people we had wronged in our often blind-loyalty to our sport and to our favorite drivers, and became willing to sincerely apologize to them, and to other drivers' fans.

9. Apologized to those fans, except when to do so might injure them or others in a pit road-style brawl.

10. Continued to compile weekly statistics and when our predictions were wrong simply admitted it instead of placing the blame on other drivers, on their fans, or on the NASCAR officials.

Having awakened our "inner NASCAR fan" as the result of negotiating these 10 turns to the best of our ability, we carried this message to other NASCAR fans still suffering in repression and denial as well as to fans of other sports.

Finally, at long last we "crossed the finish line" by learning to be "anonymous no more" and instead became proud of our NASCAR fanhood, showing it whenever and wherever possible.

[Photo credit: M Brian Ladner]

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