Chaos, fun for race fan

Okay, so I'm not your typical race fan, to say the least. \nTry as I may, I just can't do the kegstand thing, and I'd rather wear a skirt and tank than the typically requisite NASCAR vinyl jacket and bikini top.\nBut I'll admit it: I love racing. I spent my formative years at the Haubstadt Motor Speedway a few miles from my hometown of Evansville, smashing Matchbox cars into one another as my father threw back Old Milwaukees while hurling obscenities at rival drivers.\nSo suffice it to say, I was thrilled when presented with the offer to cover the Brickyard 400 for the IDS. Free food, free press pass, a chance to glimpse my favorite drivers in the pit ... it was any red-blooded, southern girl's dream. \nI'd gone to stock car races before with my family and the Indy 500 with friends, but I was a Brickyard virgin. The morning of race day I filled up my car, slid my Garth Brooks Live album into my CD player and headed up Highway 37 to the Speedway. \nThe chaos confronting me was unimaginable. I think I was too young to appreciate the variety of folks deeming themselves race fans when I came to Indy as a kid. But on this particular Sunday, fully sober and a seasoned, cosmopolitan college girl, I met the experience head-on.\nI looked lost, I'm sure. I'd just walked nearly 20 blocks from my $15 parking space in a seemingly sweet old lady's front yard. I pulled off my exit and onto her lawn, certain she wouldn't charge -- much.\nYeah, right.\nMy bright smiles, chirping hellos and thank-yous were met with a sweaty palm and a barked, "15-and-don't-you-try-and-shortchange me."\nI left her mumbling strings of derogatory slurs.\nMy confidence shaken, I took off for the track. My fellow reporter had conveniently snatched the parking pass and took off for Indianapolis the previous evening, so I was planning on meeting him at the track. The media building was sure to be in plain sight, I figured -- we'd meet up there. So I whipped out my Nokia and dialed him up. \nImmediately, the scores of shirtless stock car devotees flanking me began hooting. "Oooh, I forgot my cell phone!" they taunted, mullets glistening with sweat.\nOh, God.\nClutching Colt 45s and gnawing turkey legs, these chauvinist jeerers poked. They prodded. They were shameless, their eyes lustfully drinking in countless women in cutoff jean shorts and halter tops. \nA few subtle eyerolls, coy smiles and flash of press pass were all it took, I discovered, to fend off these lovely suitors. But I was soon confronted with another problem: my feet. My new Nine West sandals seemed like the perfect companion to my ensemble when hoofed it from my apartment to my car earlier that morning. But, their performance paled in comparison to the two-mile trek to the speedway. \nWhen I finally arrived at the main gates, having shimmied over the hood of an El Camino to avoid the cooler-toting mob, I bent over to nurse a newly-formed blister. Raising my head, I was greeted with a pair of tanned legs. "Hmmm," I thought to myself. "This could be interesting..."\nHardly. Straightening to meet Prince Charming's bloodshot eyes, my visions of loveliness shattered. Dressed in a pitted-out wifebeater and #3-emblazoned swim trunks, "Mr. Lover," as he introduced himself, obviously mistook me for one of the Budweiser girls. He grabbed my waist, pronounced me "darn cute," and dragged me into the melee. \nThe ensuing confusion found me, 20 minutes and two bratwurst later, perched on a collapsible lawn chair 20 feet from Gate 6 with three new friends: Connis, Randall and Mark. \nBelly protruding underneath his airbrushed Dale Earnhardt tribute tee, Randall wiped a grubby hand on his stonewashed jean shorts and grasped mine, pulling from his wallet photos of children, grandkids and favored drivers.\nI spent the following hour not in the Media Center or pits, but hanging out with my three new drinking buddies, hearing their stories. One had gone to dental school but dropped out to take over his father's construction company. Another's little girl had just undergone a kidney transplant; she was in the hospital, recovering. He had hated to leave her, but she insisted daddy "go watch his drivers." And Connis, my "Mr. Lover," was 21 and going back to high school to earn his G.E.D. He wanted to be a neonatal nurse, working with premature infants. \nWow. \nI might not have met Jeff Gordon or interviewed Mark Martin, but those half-drunk, Nascar-crazed guys taught me a few things. I stopped turning up my nose at the drunken revelers brushing past me in search of food, booze and women. I instead spent a lazy summer afternoon with three men who define the stock car obsession -- and tossed out those first impressions.