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It's a long way from Dixie to Hollywood. Whereas they spun doughnuts on the infield at Talladega, you can get a massage and a manicure on the infield in California. And there's white wine and Brie instead of beer and pork rinds. You can have your choice of suite sizes too. The single, 20 ft. by 21 ft., goes for $40,000 for two racing events. The double is $80,000. Two years after the speedway opened, all 75 suites are booked, there's a waiting list, and 28 new super boxes are coming.
"The concierge service is a California nuance," says Walter Czarnecki of Penske Motor Sports, which owns the speedway. The service is located in the vip motor-coach area, and when I arrive, super-stud driver Rusty Wallace is emerging from a massage. "I never thought I'd be getting a massage in the infield of a racetrack," he says. And just when you think it can get no fluffier, he sits down for a manicure.
"This sport has gone to hell," I tell him.
On race day, Gordon begins strong and gets stronger, hypnotizing everyone else into a trance. The magic is back, the slump is done, and he leaves everyone in the dust. It's his third win this year.
As for me, I can't say I'll be sitting in front of the Sony Trinitron every Sunday in a neon Earnhardt or Gordon T shirt and a NAPA auto-parts hat. But I now check to see who wins each week, and on the highway, I find myself looking for my openings, waiting for just the right moment to jam it in there. Maybe that's how it begins, and before long you're going around repeating the line Bill France says he stole from Hemingway: "There are only three sports. Bullfighting, mountain climbing and car racing. All the rest are just games."