A Prayer For Redneck Jesus
I first saw the words “redneck Jesus” on a NASCAR message board. The poster obviously meant it to demean Dale Earnhardt Jr. and, I suppose, rednecks in general. I work in an office all day, so the reddest my neck gets is mowing the lawn in the summer. There are a couple things I know about rednecks, though. First, this country was built by, and runs, on their strength. Second, infidels believe NASCAR fans are a bunch of rednecks. I guess that makes me a redneck, albeit an honorary one. I’ll wear that title proudly.
I became a NASCAR fan about ten years ago. I went to high school in the muscle car culture of the 1970’s. My friends had Mustangs, Camaros, Gran Torinos, Chargers. I drove a 1976 olive green Volkswagon Rabbit (which was faster than all the aforementioned horses combined). The owners of those cars would sit around and talk about Richard Petty or Bobby Allison. They might as well have been talking Swahili. I just couldn’t get into watching a bunch of cars drive around in circles.
Over the next couple decades, my exposure to NASCAR was watching the in-car camera as Chris Berman was ending NFL Countdown at 1:00 on Sundays and introducing that week’s race, covered at the time by ESPN. A quick press of the remote button took me to Eagleland.
In 1999 I met my wife Leslie. One of the things we had in common was a love of sports. We’re both rabid football fans, though through an unfortunate accident of geography, she pulls for the Redskins. She’s also very much into NASCAR. Leslie says she just started watching NASCAR in the 80’s. Her family was never into it, nor was the guy she was married to at the time. When I met Leslie, I was a skeptic, but when you’re in love one of the things you do is try to understand your significant other’s passion, if you can’t quite embrace it yourself. So, in the spring of 2000, I bought NASCAR For Dummies and began to edumacate myself on the sport.
Leslie probably has the best rebuttal I’ve ever heard to those who (as I used to) say that NASCAR is just a bunch of guys driving around in a circle. She says that people watching football for the first time see a bunch of guys running up and down the field, unless you understand the sport. I began to understand NASCAR. First, there’s a lot that goes on before the drivers even strap in. You have to understand the rivalries. The championship standings might be tight and the race you’re about to watch will be interesting because the guy leading the standings blew a tire in qualifying and is now starting from the back. As you watch a NASCAR race, you start being able to discern a certain ebb and flow. You also soon learn that NASCAR is a contact sport. Yes, the wrecks are spectacular, but for a NASCAR fan, the fallout after the wreck, in terms of drivers seeking retribution or cars that wouldn’t have had a chance to win finding themselves up front, is much more interesting than seeing cars sliding down the backstretch on their roofs.
So, I became an addict. As I was watching my first season in 2000, Leslie told me I had to pick a driver. During the Bristol race, I asked “Who’s the guy in the number 3 car?” She, a Mark Martin fan, wailed “NNNNNOOOOOOoooooooooooooo.” That hooked me right there. I became a Dale Earnhardt fan. That year we went to the race at Dover and I was fortunate enough to see Earnhardt, a god in the sport, race live. It’s probably a good measure of how much I, a NASCAR fan of about ten months, had taken to the sport that I sat there in shock, in tears, when Mike Helton made the announcement that Earnhardt had died in a wreck on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001. For as upset as I was, I couldn’t imagine what people who had followed him for decades felt.
I probably came to the sport too late to develop a hatred of any one driver (with the exception of the odious, satanic, smelly, loathsome asshat Kyle Busch). I never understood, for example, why some people hated Jeff Gordon so much. That said, I didn’t really have to look far for a new driver. I ran Dale Earnhardt Jr’s flag up the pole and have been a fan ever since.
There is a staggering amount of pressure being the son of god. I think what is most endearing about Earnhardt Jr. is that he readily acknowledges his pedigree and the fact that he hasn’t yet lived up to it. He understands that he is the most popular driver in the sport and that he really hasn’t done anything on the track to earn that popularity. Until a couple years ago, he was always in the mix at the end of the race and in the championship standings after the season. He’s seemed lost, however, since NASCAR radically changed the configuration of their cars and he left the team his father built.
In 2008 he moved to Hendrick Motorsports. It was thought at the time that Junior, availing himself of the equipment and institutional knowledge that made Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson superstars would jumpstart his career. It hasn’t turned out that way. Last year was a disaster.
NASCAR fans are a loyal breed. When all is said and done, Junior may end up being nothing more, or less, than a likeable, middling driver. I doubt, though, that he’s lost a fan over the last difficult two or three years. As I alluded to earlier, it’s how he deals with adversity and wears the mantle of the son of arguably the greatest figure in NASCAR history that’s the source of his popularity.
But we do love to see him win. When you watch NASCAR on TV, or see a race in person, one thing that strikes you immediately is the sound of the cars. It’s deafening. You’ve got to shout to have a conversation with the person next to you. Even more striking, though, is that the only thing I’ve ever heard at a NASCAR race that is louder than those engines is the crowd when the 88 takes the lead in the race.
Here’s to a great 2010, Junior. We’ll love ya no matter how it turns out.
