Crown Royal invited Assistant Editor Rocky Rakovic to experience auto racing with the Royal treatment. He was given a pit pass, a ride in the pace car and shadowed the race’s Grand Marshal. Oh yeah, Rocky had never watched a race, doesn’t much like cars and is content on taking the subway to work. This was his first entry. Here’s his second: 

-We drive past security guards to the back lot where the drivers’ RVs are parked. Because these guys are literally on the road all season their teams and families live out of motorhomes. But these trailers are amazing, nicer than my apartment and almost bigger.

-Someone in the party explains that there are two guys who drive the RV around the country, cook all the meals and do the beer and food shopping. Basically they are professional tailgaters.

-The Crown Royal RV has a stocked wet bar. I’m told to help myself and though it’s not yet 11 AM, as a serious journalist who wants to immerse himself in the culture of NASCAR, I figure when in Richmond…
 

-After three fingers of Crown I meet Dan Lowry. He’s as average as they come and that’s a compliment. I had expected that Crown Royal would choose a guy who was photogenic and media savvy. While I’m not putting the man down (as I’m no Adonis) he looks like any guy you’d see in a bar. And for a guy in a bar he has that perfect “aww shucks” way about him that makes him a better candidate to be an ambassador for the brand in the NASCAR community than any polished-to-wax figure. His wife is by his side, and with all due respect, has that very cute Amy Smart from Varsity Blues look. I burden them by explaining that I’m a newbie to the track and even though this is their day they promise (an make good on it) to hold my hand through the event.

-I ask him about his essay and he takes me through the expanded version of being in South America and being homesick then Crown appeared out of nowhere and comforted him. Here’s the short version that won him the race:

While working in Venezuela, I went to a restaurant for a drink.  While trying to decide what to have amongst the unknown labels, there it was...I spotted that royal purple pouch we all love!  For that moment, I didn't feel so far away from home. The cool factor here is that he actually is a Crown Royal drinker, no bullshit. If, say, Coors Light, which I think could be the most awful beverage to ever cross my lips were holding a contest to have your name attached to the Orange Bowl, I’d fake it. Dan didn’t even have to.

-I’m next introduced to Dan’s parents. Again, extremely nice people. His father looks a bit harried and the master of small talk that I am, I ask about his flight. “It was awful!” he huffs. Turns out this man who in his early sixties boarded his first airplane this weekend. While I consult bus schedules back to Ohio I’m told we’re going to take practice laps in a pace car.

-We take golf carts (the only way to travel) down to the track and immediately the size of the arena is unbelievable impressive. In my time covering sports I’ve been on professional surfaces of baseball, basketball and football. While they may look vast, we’ve all played on regulation-sized courts/fields and they are the same dimensions just surrounded by rows and rows of seating. A racetrack is HUGE and is encircled by the same height of seating. While this may seem obvious it is something that I never considered.

-On the drive up to respective pace cars I ask Dan what’s so cool about NASCAR and he says, “Going fast.” This is the response I hear from people in the race world all the time. As I’ve stated before my blood doesn’t boil when I hear engines rev and my buddies tell me that the thrill of racing is the ludicrous speed. ‘It’s all when you are burning down the track and you get the rush from going so fast.’ My (snooty) response normally is that I’ve participated in air travel. Then they correct me and say that modern airplanes are supposed to combat the feeling that you are actually traveling 1,000’s of miles per hour. OK, then I feel roller coasters don’t much thrill me, and I can’t believe people stand on lines for them. Then they regularly retort, “You’re a douche.” Or, “But a roller coaster isn’t going off the track where a car needs to be controlled.” Well, finally here I am about to ride in a racecar.

-Standing in a line with a few hundred other special guests (more on this later), I’m hearing tales of pace care rides. A journalist from NASCAR’s insider magazine tells me about a woman who pissed her pants and another person recalls a time when a guy puked onto the inside of the windshield—almost completely obstructing the driver’s vision. I’m getting a little nervous, but more self-conscious about ruining my new pair of khakis than loathing the ride.

-I pose for pictures outside the souped up Impala proudly displaying Dan Lowry’s name (I’ll spare you my mug), climb in, buckle and brace myself. We take off screaming (the car, not the passengers). The driver takes the banked corner low to high and floors it into the straightaway. Umm…kind of thrilling. As we speed around the track, the pace car driver effortlessly explains finer details of auto racing like he is driving a New York City bus tour, only he is not driving a bus--he’s driving a friggin race car. I spy his speedometer and in all my life of speeding tickets (three within the first two weeks of getting my driver’s license!) I’ve never pushed the arrow that far to the right. My khakis are still immaculate but I’m a bit worried as technically I am out-of-control. My life is in this man’s hands. They are at 10 and 2.