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 and doesn’t much like cars. This was his first entry, this was his second, here was his third, and here is the fourth:

-Ever heard the Party Joke that goes, “Two men meet at a department store and both are looking for their wives who have wandered off.
‘What’s yours look like?’ the first asked.
‘She’s blonde with huge breasts and long legs,’ the first answered. Then he asked, ‘How about yours?’
‘Forget mine,’ the other said, ‘lets find yours.’?”

Well, let's just say I gave up looking for my friend’s sister and followed another guy on his hunt to find his friends at a tailgate.
 

-As we make our way through the parking field we come to an oasis: a makeshift watering hole in a tent.  While it would be cool to sit in an air-conditioned bar in the middle of the chaos, there wasn’t a looker or lady (but there were a few females) in the joint so we pushed on.

-It is amazing what girls can make bikinis out of? See the above pic.

-Here’s where I show my true New England upbringing: I turn to my new friend and go, “None of these people grew out of bean bag toss? I haven’t seen a bean bag since we threw my brother a birthday party when he turned seven.” Apparently cornhole is huge in the South. And apparently I am still seven years old because I snicker every time he says “cornhole.” My giggling increased when he was explaining the ins and outs of the game and told me a bean bag that stays on the board but doesn’t go through the hole is called a “woodie.”

-We find his party and talked to a few girls while their male friend with a popped collar—won’t this please go away?—hovered over us. The vegetarian girls were eating cheese sandwiches (not exactly local tailgate flavor), but they served the Champagne of Beers, which was a good pick-me-up. 

-Then we were off a gazebo area just outside the track where Crown Royal’s driver Jamie McMurray meet-and-greeted the fans. This is what I learn makes NASCAR such a popular sport (yeah, we’re calling it a sport after the pace car ride). Fans’ access to the stars is limited in most arenas, but anybody can really walk up to the racers.

-Before I meet Jamie, a Crown Royal person tells me that “racer” is an insult and that I should stick with driver.

-Jamie is nice and he’s slick. He has light eyes, feathered blonde hair and cleft chin: kind of like the American Gladiator Titan without the beach muscles. In a sport where fan interaction is part of the game, I’ve noticed that almost all drivers are handsome. This also helps in shilling for their sponsors and doubling NASCAR’s popularity by drawing female fans. Case in point, this website. 

-Jamie autographs art that Dan Lowry's wife, Amy Lowry's, autistic students created. She’s going to auction it off to help buy more school supplies. There are a lot of good feelings at the gazebo, not to mention my buzz.

-The MC of the pre-race event at the gazebo talks about Dan Lowry’s Crown Royal moment and asks if anyone in the crowd wants to make their own, right now? In what appears to be sort of a plant, but sincere enough, a man approaches the stage and asks his girlfriend if she’d take his hand in marriage. She says "yes" but her hug (sans kiss) adds, “only to not make you look foolish and we have a long race ahead of us if I don’t.” We toast them with more Crown Royal, the bride-to-be gulps it all down.

-It’s just after 4PM and we retire to the Crown Royal RV to eat before we go inside the oval for the race. I could live off Crown and tailgate, and I am doing just that this weekend. I top off a half-empty soda bottle with more Crown as the sun goes down and we make our way to the big event. Before we enter the stadium, Dan Lowry asks me if I remembered my earplugs. I didn’t.