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Pocono Raceway is the Backdrop for Several Stories in The Weekend Starts On Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans
The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans is not your typical racing book. For one, it starts with the author waking up in a fan’s bus – in the infield at Pocono Raceway.
Instead of using historic races or champion drivers, NASCAR insider Andrew Giangola explains the history and popularity of NASCAR through the eyes – and the converted school buses – of the fans. Giangola scoured the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit, finding fan stories that are hilarious and heart breaking.
It’s no surprise that Pocono Raceway, which has been hosting NACAR Sprint Cup Series Races since 1974 is the setting for some of the book’s most memorable tales of over-the-top fandom.
Among the most biggest fans at Pocono is Kenneth Gregory of Franklin, Pa. Known as “The Fathead Guy,” Gregory is a generous and kind-hearted fan who’s created an eye-popping homage to the sport he’s made part of his life for more than three decades. Gregory has made Fatheads – the humongous player decals fans plaster on their walls – into a NASCAR prop for the infield. His “starting grid” of drivers stops fans in their tracks and starts conversations. That’s the plan – to share something all NASCAR fans can talk about.
“The best part of the Fathead driver cutouts is how they’ve allowed me to make so many friends,” the retired tool and die-maker says in The Weekend Starts on Wednesday. “At the race track, I have good friends, and they treat me well. I love life and NASCAR and great people. I get all that here.”
“NASCAR is said to be as much a lifestyle as a sport,” said Brandon Igdalsky, President of Pocono Raceway. “Tens of thousands of fans like Kenny come to the track and have an enormous amount of fun all weekend long. And yes, for many, it does start on Wednesday! I’m really glad NASCAR put the resources into a book about these passionate, fun-loving fans, who are the backbone of our sport. This book definitely breaks new ground in capturing why our fans come out in such big numbers and are so loyal to NASCAR.”
Another big NASCAR fan featured in the book is Right Turn Ryan, the M&Ms “fanvocate” patrolling the infield and the campgrounds from Pocono to Sonoma, handing out M&Ms and encouraging fans to enter a contest to be anointed the Most Colorful Fan of NASCAR.
Wearing a snazzy M&Ms fire suit with hot flames shooting down the arm, Ryan is an ambassador for the entire sport. He may meet more fans than anyone else in NASCAR.
In his chapter, Right Turn had spent the morning in Pocono combing the infield for the best fan to feature on his popular “Most Colorful Fan of NASCAR” segment airing on SPEED’s “Race Day” program. Visiting more than a dozen campsites, he was offered water, beer, scotch, tequila, a cigar, a turkey sandwich, a sausage hoagie, a cheeseburger, chicken wings, a hot dog, and shrimp and pepper kebobs. He met fans who’d driven from California and Canada, and cops and firemen who ran into the burning World Trade Center towers to save strangers they’d never met. Over and over, he heard that universal greeting among fans: You hungry? “The generosity of these fans never ceases to amaze me,” Ryan said.
The Weekend Starts on Wednesday is a travelogue across “NASCAR Nation” where fans travel hundreds of miles to spend several days at the track. “For these fans, the track is Disney World and the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids and the Roman Coliseum wrapped into one great trip where new friendships are made, old ones are rekindled, and a pretty good race breaks out,” Giangola writes.
The denizens of NASCAR Nation – at Pocono Raceway and all over the circuit – turn out to be a special breed sharing common values. As the author says, “Outside of NASCAR, show me a place with as many empty beer bottles and as few fights.”
According to Oscar winner Kevin Costner, who is a student of American history and sees a microcosm of our country at the race track, it’s a communal, beautiful place where everyone’s welcome:
“If you put your snobbery aside, these people are having fun in the purest way,” Costner said. “Man, there’s some Bubbas out there, for sure. And it’s sweet. They’re in a place they love, and no one has to tell them how to have a good time.”
The full story of Kenny Gregory’s marvelous Fathead display an Right Turn Ryan’s M&Ms-fueled journey across the infield is found in The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans”(Motorbooks, 304 pages with 99 color photos). The book will appear in stores Feb. 12. It’s now available for preorder on amazon.com, the NASCAR.COM SuperStore and PoconoRaceway.com.
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