Rituals: Camping Inside the Speedway
On Friday, the weather had been chilly and overcast, but the sun bore down before Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts race, causing the track to slicken and drivers to lose control coming out of Turn 2. “Looks like it’s going to be a crashfest,” says a man looking up at the big screen from the campground gravel. Above him, four sixtysomethings stand on top of a motorhome taking in the destruction and a steady supply of beer. Don’t they worry about stumbling off the roof? “Nah, I’m a professional,” says one wearing a patriotically themed Kevin Harvick shirt. A pro at perching on RVs? “No. Drinker,” he says, knocking back a mouthful.
This year marks Texas Motor Speedway’s 30th NASCAR season, which also means three decades of camping at the track. Fans came from as far as Idaho and as near as Roanoke, rolling in on Wednesday for five days of racing and revelry. Camping options include a VIP lot, the grassy RV outfield, and a tent-only area beyond the track’s walls, but the party’s epicenter is the infield grounds—879 RV spots on the eastern half of the track’s inner oval.
Inside the track, fans erect 13-foot scaffolding platforms or roll in repurposed school buses with top decks for the ultimate race-watching experience. One afternoon, a man near the North Tunnel uses a circular saw to put the finishing touches on a slide attached to a scaffolding setup, as his group found that the dubious nature of descending a ladder was directly proportional to their degree of inebriation. (Outcome: now they can get drunker.)
There are no strangers at the track. Get talking to someone in front of their RV, and they’re likely to ask, “Can I get you somethin’?” or, more directly, “Wanna shot?” A group near Turn 3 has a portable, glowing trifold bar with a selection of shots including a sweating cooler full of Slippery Banana. The alligator head on the bar top isn’t just for show; it was the 6-foot beast they prepared for lunch.
“You make a family no matter where you go at a NASCAR race, I’ll tell you that,” says a Georgian who wears head-to-toe green, including a porkpie hat, kilt, and sleeveless tailcoat that he leaves unbuttoned, allowing his globular belly to bronze. Three months into the NASCAR season, he has already traveled to seven races across the Southeast. Groups who first met on speedway grounds get together every year, often booking more spots than campers, so they can create a common courtyard between recreational vehicles.
The campgrounds have grown more family-friendly in recent years, a welcome change or a tragedy depending on whom you ask. A mom from Burleson holding a teething toddler says she first brought the boy to the races when he was 8 weeks old. School-age kids rip their bikes through campground roads, popping wheelies with Ring Pops inside their sticky mouths.
Yet to hear the old-timers tell it, the campgrounds were once a thicket of stripper poles. As Saturday turns into Sunday, two men drinking beer outside their Class A RVs recall the track’s wildest moments, like the time a gal dropped trou to showcase a fluorescent star tattooed in a place where the sun don’t shine, her husband beaming a black light on her backside to make the ink glow. “Yeah, it’s pretty boring now,” says one of the men. As he says this, a yellow school bus labeled “Roxanne ISD” rolls by. Inside, a crowd of 20, maybe more, are singing along to Toby Keith’s biggest hit. “We’ll put a boot in your ass!” the busload shouts, before erupting into a “USA” chant.
Additional wildlife at the track includes bees that swarm at random, which happens often enough to necessitate a beekeeper on standby who can arrive within 20 minutes. On Saturday, he is called to vacuum a colony that mobbed the underside of a grill. Slightly less intimidating are seven hawks that appear one morning, cutting figure eights with their monster wings in the clear blue sky. “There was a crawfish boil in the outfield last night,” explains a woman with crispy bleached hair.
Come Sunday morning, the campgrounds are quiet aside from the incessant rumble of so many generators. (The infield has no electric or water hookups.) In fact, the crowd doesn’t perk up until that afternoon, about 15 minutes into the mainstage event, NASCAR’s Wurth 400 race. “Lap 30 is when tires start to pop,” says a woman wearing a red “Bubba” shirt. She is standing on the deck of a white school bus while her husband watches the track’s Big Hoss TV screen from the comfort of their air-conditioned camper. “He comes for the party; I come for the race,” she says.
The bus is owned by an Austinite nicknamed Captain Morgan, who pays to store the rig near the track. As the drivers make maneuvers around the ring, Captain becomes increasingly excited. Over the gut-shaking roar of 750 horsepower V-8 engines, he explains that his friends Jeff and Gary have a bet. Gary picked driver Denny Hamlin to win; Jeff picked Chase Elliott. If Jeff loses, he owes Gary $50, but if Gary loses, he has to return to the speedway in 2027 wearing a Bud Light hat. (The NASCAR crowd has still not forgiven the brand.) After 2 hours, 56 minutes, and 17 seconds, driver Chase Elliott completes the winning 267th lap, and Captain Morgan rushes down the ladder, ready to crow over Gary’s lost gamble.
