NASCAR won’t let fans in the Coca-Cola 600, but these diehards still camped out
Tommy Kelly has been camping Memorial Day weekend outside Charlotte Motor Speedway for 15 years.
Why should a pandemic that kept fans out of the Coca-Cola 600 bust up that tradition?
Kelly sat under an awning attached to his camper Sunday afternoon, across Morehead Road from the speedway. He was surrounded by a half-dozen friends and family. They had makings for a Lowcountry Boil, motorcycles to ride and a big-screen TV set up for the race’s scheduled start around 6 p.m.
So even with COVID-19 restrictions keeping fans out of the track, this felt familiar and comfortable.
“This wasn’t no different — we just come, drink a few beers, cook food and have a good time. Then, watch the race on television,” said Kelly, a former speedway employee.
Kelly’s group set up camp on Thursday. There was a circle of four campers early afternoon Sunday that slept about a dozen people. More friends showed up Saturday night, making for a party of about 20 for cornhole, food and music. With no fans allowed to enter the speedway for the race, about half that group left Sunday morning.
Diehards
“I thought there would be (more people) at this location,” Kelly, who lives in Kannapolis, said of the closest campsite not on speedway land. “I guess everybody is staying home, but we don’t. We’re diehards!”
For Patti Griggs, who works in meat-processing in Salisbury, the prospect of doing anything not restricted by North Carolina’s stay-at-home order was very appealing, even without access to the track.
“Nothing is open. You can’t really do anything. This is a way to (socialize) safely with friends who are like family,” said Griggs, whose husband is related to Kelly.
“I am ready for normalcy!’ said Griggs, from Concord. “Even with no fans, you can still watch it” on TV.
Griggs thinks races without fans in the stands are a welcome distraction for now, but nothing she’d want for long: “You always need the fans’ support — drivers feed off that, also — the excitement!”
Lost mingling
NASCAR has a long tradition of close interaction with fans; drivers often mingling in the infields pre-race, signing autographs and shaking hands.
Obviously, all that is on hold during a pandemic, when race teams are limited in how much personnel can be in the pits and garages, and drivers and crews wear masks and practice social distancing..
That didn’t stop Charlotte’s Larry Bickley from setting up a cardboard cutout of his favorite driver, Kyle Busch, across Morehead Road from the track. Though he might be a half-mile distant from the action, just getting a distant whiff made raceday feel authentic to him.
“I wanted to hear the motors and get that smell” of tires and motors, said Bickley, a convenience-store worker.
Bickley was going to watch on television and monitor the drivers on a scanner. Just being nearby Sunday felt important.
“This is the best we could do,” Bickley said, “until they let us get up close.”
