folks,” he said to the group. “They’re not here yet. Nothing to see here.”
After a long climb up the stairs, Bekasu led the pack from the interior hallway and out into the sunlight in the Richard Petty section of the grandstand overlooking the center of the oval track. In design and construction, the building resembled a football stadium except that there was no grass on the field of play below. There had been years ago, when football had been played here, but now concrete lined the entire floor of the arena and the brightly painted tractor trailers that transported the race cars to the track were lined up in serried rows within the oval.
“I still say that it’s a wedding no matter where they hold it, and we’re not properly dressed, and-
Harley Claymore came up beside her and smiled down at the familiar scene. “Yeah, I told you it was confining. You should see what it’s like when you look up from down there.”
“It looks like the inside of a cement mixer,” murmured Bekasu. “Do they really go 200 miles per hour in that?”
“Nah! ’Course not!-Ninety miles an hour is about average speed. There’s more than forty cars competing, remember, so things get crowded out there, too. Slows things down.”
“On
“They don’t race on the flat part of the track,” said Justine. “Don’t you ever listen when I explain things to you? The racing is done up there.” She waved her hand, indicating the concrete embankment that encircled the track as a steep sloping wall.
“But it’s nearly vertical. How could anybody drive on that?”
“Centrifugal force,” said Terence Palmer softly. “I expect it feels like being in a blender.”
Bekasu turned to stare at him. He hadn’t said much so far on the tour, and she had wondered if he were a racing fan at all.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, he said, “I learned that in physics class, not on the SPEED Channel.”
“Well, I can attest to the truth of it,” said Harley. “The race is run there on the embankment, but no matter how crowded it gets, there’s plenty of room for errors.”
Harley, who had been checking their seat numbers, was pleased to find that they had been situated high up in the grandstands, which was good. Unlike most other sports, the high seats in the grandstands are better than the lower ones for stock car racing, because to really see the race, spectators need an overview of the entire course. So did the drivers themselves. Their vista was limited to the short stretch of road in front of them, which is why each team had a spotter, positioned sniper-like on the very top of the structure, relaying information to the crew and driver about the position of other cars and possible trouble on the track ahead. There were times when a driver’s windshield was so clouded with dust or smoke that his visibility was zero, and the only way for him to keep going, even to get off the track, was to drive blind and rely on the spotter’s directions.
“It’s remarkably like the Coliseum,” said Bill Knight, peering over Bekasu’s shoulder. “That oval appears to be about the length of the Circus Maximus, which is where the Romans actually held their chariot race, though of course their track was flat. Ninety miles an hour, did you say? The Essedarii couldn’t get up that much speed in chariots. Surely they can’t drive
“Centrifugal force,” said Harley, trying to look as if he had not just overheard the explanation.
“Just you wait,” said Justine. “It’s quite a sight.”
“But surely it would be suicide!”
“No. Bristol’s pretty safe,” said Harley. “Those are thirty-six-degree angles on the turns, sixteen degrees on the straightaway. Makes it interesting. It’s low speeds, like I said.” He wished the tourists would stay together so that he wouldn’t have to keep answering the same questions over and over.
“Well, relatively speaking. They go about 180 at Daytona. And they have crash helmets and safety harnesses and all. It’s exciting to watch, though. The short tracks call for more driving skills than the long flatter speedways. But it does get hot in there. Sometime back in the seventies, twenty-five out of the thirty racers had to let relief drivers take over for them on account of the heat. That’s probably why they schedule the summer race for the evening these days, but of course we’ll be out in the brunt of the heat for this wedding. Everybody got sunblock?”
Justine smiled. “Already in my moisturizer,” she said. “Anyhow I wouldn’t need it for the race where I’ll be sitting.” She tugged at her sister’s arm. “Right now, we’ve got to get down there and see the wedding.” She beckoned for Bill Knight to follow. “A judge and a preacher-you two can compare notes about the ceremony!”
“Oh!” said Cayle, waving her digital camera. “Look! The Cale Yarborough section is right below us. My dad will be thrilled. Can somebody get my picture next to the sign as we go down?”
“What did she mean, she won’t need sunblock where she’s going?” asked Bill Knight nodding toward Justine.
Harley shrugged. “Maybe she’s driving.”
Although the race would not begin until evening, the Speedway was already a hive of activity. Spectators trickled into the grandstands or wandered about the infield. Pit crews busied themselves in preparation for the pre- race inspection and then the race itself and television crews set up for the late afternoon event. On the Speedway infield, a plain wooden podium had been placed before a white lattice garden trellis decked with summer flowers: the site of the morning nuptials. Some of the reporters had decided to cover the NASCAR weddings as a sidebar to the Bristol race story. Wearing summer-weight brown suits and smarmy smiles, they roamed among the odd assortment of brides and grooms, microphone in hand, with a photographer or video-cam operator in tow, seeking out the most stereotypical-looking couples to feature.
As the Number Three Pilgrims reached the bottom of the grandstand, they could make out brides and grooms in every stage of sartorial splendor, milling around or posing for snapshots against the Speedway backdrop.
“Oh, aren’t they cute?” said Justine as they reached track level. “There must be a dozen cloned Dales out there waiting to get hitched. Look at that one!” She pointed to a slender youth in black jeans, black tee shirt, and cowboy boots. “Or the one over there in the white Goodwrench firesuit and sunglasses.”
“Striking resemblance,” said Cayle. “I just wish it wasn’t the bride.”
“Dale Earnhardt got married in that outfit?” asked Bill Knight, peering over her shoulder.
“I seriously doubt it,” said Justine, “though it’s hard to be sure, ’cause he tied the knot three different times, which gives you a lot of options. But I can think of at least one Mrs. Earnhardt who wouldn’t have let him get away with it. These guys today aren’t worried about what Dale actually got married in, though. They’re just dressing up in what they think of as the typical Dale outfit.”
“And the brides let them dress like that for the wedding?”
“Well, I figure that any guy who can get his woman to marry him in the middle of a motor speedway on race day could probably get away with just about anything. Some of them went for a more formal look, though. See that guy over there in the tux?”
“There’s certainly a range of styles here.”
“Yeah, from Dale Earnhardt to Dale Evans.”
“I don’t know when I last saw a pastel tuxedo,” said Cayle.
Bekasu spotted a television crew ambushing a young couple. “Vultures!” she muttered. “The thing is, those smug reporters down there are going to assume that none of these people know how silly they’re going to look to a TV audience, but most of them
“Really?” said Terence Palmer with raised eyebrows. “You detect postmodern irony?”
“Betcher ass we do,” said Justine. She pointed to the wedding participants. “Now I’ll bet this is a second or third marriage for some of those older couples, and they’ve done the whole white-gown-and-church bit before. So now they’re going to do it their way and they don’t give a damn what anybody thinks.”
“She knows whereof she speaks,” sighed Bekasu. “I was there for all three of Justine’s nuptials. The first time was white satin in the Grace Episcopal Church, with a groom who had children our age. Then there was the time she married her boss in the medieval ceremony with velvet cloaks and lute players in the Charlotte Renaissance
