Haul A** and Turn Left Read Online Free Page B

forty-three cars take the green flag, many of which won’t last too long at the track where Sterling Marlin described the racing as “jet planes in a gymnasium.”
    There are too many cars going too fast in too small a space. That, in a nutshell, is what makes the fans love it.
    “It’s one of my favorites,” says Tony Stewart, “but Bristol is a track that’s feast or famine. If you have a really good day, it’s a lot of fun, but if you have one little problem, it normally makes for a very long day.”
    Stewart speaks from experience. He’s won there, but a graph of his finishes could’ve been charted at a seismic lab.
    “You just don’t have time to relax,” he adds. “Everything happens so fast. At the end of the day, when the race is done and your adrenaline wears off, you’re worn out, but when you’re in the car and the adrenaline’s pumping, you don’t get in that smooth, calm rhythm like you do at a place like Michigan or California, where you’ve got big, sweeping corners and long straightaways.
    “You don’t get that luxury at Bristol. It’s standard short-track racing.”
    Standard short-track racing? It’s more like standard bedlam. Winners have crossed the finish line sideways or backward. Imagine roller derby with four skates. Imagine bobsledding with engines.
    You want crashes? They occur inevitably on the tight concrete ribbon. On the one hand, the level of excitement would seem to suggest that the likely winner is the one lucky enough not to have three or four cars spin out in front of him. On the other, the results seem to indicate that some drivers have an otherworldly knack for staying clear of trouble.
    It evidently takes some mystical brand of skill to succeed amidst the dizzying action at a track that is breathtakingly fast, incredibly small, and surrounded by grandstands banked even more steeply than its turns.

    “When I saw the wall coming through the car, I knew I was in trouble.”
    —Busch Series driver
    MIKE HARMON
    after walking away from a gruesome crash at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2002

    “When I was coming along, if we went to the veteran drivers, it was for advice and because we looked up to them. I’m not sure that’s the case in this day and time. A lot of young drivers come in with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, thinking that’s the way that they have to be … There’s a little lack of respect, but it’s not just in this garage area or not just within auto racing. It’s in our society, period.”
    —DALE JARRETT

    “I look at it the same way any weekend. If you play it too aggressive, it’s going to get you in trouble. If you play it too conservative, it’s going to get you in trouble. It doesn’t matter where you’re at.”
    —JEFF GORDON

    “It’s pretty nice, actually. I got a little confused a few weeks ago. I needed to go to the mall about the time the race started, and got there and thought, what are all these people doing here? I thought everybody watched the race. I’m learning there’s a whole new world out there.”
    —TERRY LABONTE
    after deciding to compete in just ten races a year

    “I’ve lived it. I’ve done it. I like running more on my schedule than having to be there full-time.”
    —BILL ELLIOTT
    explaining why he decided to cut back

    “When I’m an old man, I’m going to bore my grandkids to death with racing stories, and I’ll tell them once a week how I shocked everybody my rookie year by winning the Texas race. They’ll probably be like, ‘You told us that yesterday.’”
    —DALE EARNHARDT JR.

D uring the week after his first Nextel Cup victory, Carl Edwards rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. The prospect sent him into what can only be described as a wide-eyed tizzy.
    Edwards recalled, “I was like, ‘I’m going to be in Columbia [Missouri, his hometown], and I don’t know how I’ll get there,’ and she [public relations rep Sheri Hermann] said, ‘No, you don’t