By Brian Ekberg

　　Design by Collin Oguro

　　It was hot in Chicago. The kind of hot that makes you wish your skin secreted sunblock. The kind of hot that would make you wish for male-pattern baldness if only to cool your head off. The sun was high and bright against a blue sky, but it was darting in and among some light cloud cover over Joliet, Illinois, home of the Chicagoland Speedway, which was hosting the weekend's USG Sheetrock 400. This was the 18th race on the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup event calendar, and there was also going to be a race on Saturday from the Busch series, the USG Durock 300. Though the Busch series is typically viewed as merely a support series to the main Nextel Cup schedule, there was a buzz about Saturday's Busch race, if only because so many of the regular Nextel Cup drivers would be participating as a warm-up to the big race on Sunday.

　　Even though it was Friday afternoon, two full days before the big race, RVs and cars already piled up in the infield; in a way the event was reminiscent of the sort of weeklong tailgate parties that spontaneously erupt on college campuses during the week of a big game. There were folks grilling steaks or hot dogs outside their campers; race fans standing on the roofs of their RVs, slowly turning circles with binoculars in hand as they followed Mark Martin or Tony Stewart's practice laps around the track; and people lining up to take their turn at the public showers offered on the infield. In a way, everyone is family at a NASCAR event--a big, raucous, and slightly sunburned family.

　　NASCAR prides itself on giving fans up close and personal access to the action. One of the things that sets NASCAR apart from the snootier forms of motorsport (we're looking at you, Formula One) is the incredible amount of access that the public has to drivers, pit crews, and even the cars themselves. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see world-renowned talents like Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin walking through the garage areas, patiently signing autographs, or posing for photographs for a throng of fans that trailed behind them. It's as if the drivers--and by extension, the sport itself--recognizes the importance of the viewing public and does its best to make itself and its stars as accessible as possible to those who, at least partially, pay the bills. With the incredible explosion in popularity of the sport over the past half decade or so, this type of all-access atmosphere has been necessarily toned down a bit to allow the teams and drivers the ability to move relatively freely. Still, the average NASCAR fan in Chicago on Sunday had a much better chance of grabbing an autograph from last year's NASCAR champ Kurt Busch than a fan at Sunday's British Grand Prix had of obtaining a Michael Schumacher signature.

　　Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his teammate Martin Truex Jr. get a little pre-race action in with EA Sports' upcoming NASCAR game. Of course, access in NASCAR is a two-way street. For fans, it means being close to the drivers they adore; for the drivers, it might mean helicopter rides into and out of the stadium (thus avoiding the choking traffic that surrounds every NASCAR venue on race weekends). For teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr., access meant an early look at NASCAR 06 (an updated preview of which you can find here). It's easy to see that both Juniors are big gamers, and their ribbing of each other during an impromptu race revealed both an easy friendship and a good-natured rivalry that manifests itself mostly off the racetrack. In fact, both drivers can at least partially credit one great finish to their love of video games, which was a 2004 Busch series race at Talladega that saw Truex and Earnhardt finish 1-2 after choosing a racing line based on their gaming experience at a virtual Talladega.

　　"We actually worked together pretty much throughout the day," said Truex, recalling the story. "Everybody was running on the bottom end of the track and [Dale Jr. and I] like to run on the high side on the games we play at Talladega; so he came on the radio and I knew like that [what to do]..."

　　

NASCAR 06 preview

While attending the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, we had a chance to check out the newest build of EA Sports' upcoming console stock car game, NASCAR 06: Total Team Control. Read our preview of the game here.

　　Truex and Earnhardt aren't just friends off the track; they're partners of a sort on race day, as both drivers (along with Michael Waltrip) race for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI). Being teammates means sharing lots of information on race setups, car performance, and track conditions while off the track. But how closely does that relationship matter with five laps left in the race, when both teammates are pushing hard for a race win?

　　"I think it depends a lot on personality," said Earnhardt. "If I'm racing against Martin, me and him are friends, so we treat each other with a lot of respect and we're going to want to help each other."

　　Which isn't exactly what 2004 champ Kurt Busch had to say on the matter, at least when it comes to racing in the game. "When you get the last set of tires for the race, there's no more teammates," said Busch. "If you come off pit road and your teammate's right in front of you, he's going to make it tough for you to pass him."

　　

Setting the Pace

Three laps at Chicagoland Speedway in a Dodge Magnum at well over 100 mph. Not a bad way to start off the morning. Beyond the spectacle and pure madness of the actual race itself, one of the most thrilling experiences of the weekend came when we got a chance to take a few laps in the official pace car of the race. Our initial skepticism of the ride choice--a Dodge Magnum (we're doing laps in a station wagon?)--was immediately dashed once we piled into the car and began accelerating, and accelerating…and accelerating. It's difficult to put into words what the exhilarating sense of power and speed felt like. For one thing, Chicagoland is distinct for its lack of true straightaways--the course is essentially one long turn. And that might not mean much if you were traveling the course at 55mph, but at the speeds we were traveling on our final lap (somewhere around 90mph in the corners and approaching 120 on the "straights"), the g-force pressure on the head and neck was vastly impressive and utterly thrilling. And when you consider that the Nextel Cup drivers take the corners at around 140mph, often bunched up in tight traffic and in sweltering midsummer conditions, it's hard not to come away from the pace car experience with a newfound respect for the sport. It helped that our pace car driver was tremendously skilled as well, exiting corners on the last lap at top speed and gently allowing the car's momentum to drift outside until a mere handful of inches was all that separated us from the outer wall of the track.

　　

Chicagoland Speedway

Length: 1.5 miles

　　Capacity: 75,000

　　Number of Suites: 32

　　Banking: 18 degrees (all four corners)

　　Track Width: 55 feet

　　Apron Width: 27 feet

　　In the hours leading up to the Busch series race on Saturday, we were able to take a detailed tour of the garage area, exploring practically all of the nooks and crannies of the NASCAR mechanics' areas, and getting up close and personal while the mechanics prepared the cars for the race. To describe a Nextel Cup series car's idling engine sound as a "growl" is an understatement akin to describing Chicago's windless and sweltering summer heat as "balmy." Several times, members of our touring group jumped in alarm as a stock car engine sprang to life with a deafening roar that would put most thunderstorms to shame.

　　Touring the impressive Richard Childress trailer revealed a number of surprises--mainly the extremely tight organization of a vehicle that manages to transport the actual NASCAR stock car itself, as well as enough engineering tools, spare parts, and computer equipment to power an arm of NASA (not to mention a full wardrobe of team uniforms). Beyond the sterile atmosphere of the engineering bay was the luxurious (if a tad space-deprived) living area in the Childress trailer, complete with couches, carpet, and a nice TV for viewing the day's practice and qualifying action on the Speed Channel.

　　

Cigarettes and Gasoline

Over the wall and into the pit lane; NASCAR pit crews work fast and they work hard. With an early afternoon start for the Busch series race approaching, we headed over to the pit area to get as close as possible to the action on the track. Since this was a Busch race, the officials were much less strict about who was allowed in the pit areas. As long as you had the proper credentials and stayed mostly behind a clearly marked yellow line, you were welcome to roam the pits at your leisure. The most popular items we noticed in the pits beyond the spare tires and gas cans: Bottles of water and cigarettes. For whatever reason, and despite the fact that there were canisters of high-grade Sunoco fuel all over the place, a huge number of participants in the NASCAR pits had a cigarette in their mouth. One can only assume they knew what they were doing.

　　Having pit lane access gives you a different angle of the races than what you see on television--teams pile over the wall as drivers come in for stops, manage to refuel, put new tires on, and adjust a car in mere seconds. Being that close to the action gives you that much more of a feeling of being there. In addition, seeing the cars scream around the track in gaudily colored packs of metal and rubber is undeniably cool. Unfortunately, watching the race from the pits, or indeed anywhere on the infield, has its disadvantages. For one thing, you don't have a picture of the entire track. Usually your vantage point limits you to only the particular section of the track you can see. How do you know, then, when something has happened on the course, such as an accident? Your main clue is that you'll be able to actually hear yourself think, since the telltale howl of engines fades to a dull drone as cars slow down under the yellow flag to take laps while whatever problem is cleared up.

　　The drivers tackle the tough first two corners at Chicagoland Speedway. As the day went on and the drivers continued to turn laps, we started looking for ways to cool off. The race began to become far less important in our minds, and finding a nice air conditioned spot to sit down, having a cold bottle of water, and talking about all the things we saw over the weekend seemed to take precedence. We found just such a spot--an RV owned by a welcoming member of the NASCAR fan family, who invited us into their home on wheels to cool down and take a load off our tired feet. With cars scuffing rubber and revving engines all around us on a hot summer day just outside of Chicago, there was no other place that we'd rather have been...especially since we were indoors.