How long have you been a race fan?

Since I was 4..or 5 when my Dad took me to mey first race at Sportsman speedway in Johnson City, Tn.. Hmmmm guess that's gettin pretty close to 49 years.


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Founder/Creator - RacersReunion®
updated by @jeff-gilder: 01/10/17 10:42:34AM

When I was 15, I had a crush on a boy who's father owned the local track. I started attending just to stalk see him. I lost interest in him in a few weeks and fell in love with racing. That was 35 years ago. The love has just grown from there, into obsession:)

Was a fan from about 5 till i reached about 32. My Dad used to take me to Dorsey and Westprot in the late 50's early 60's, and then Beltsville opened up and I was lured to the asphalt and NASCAR Modified and Sportsman racing. Dad also took me to a telecast in a local movie theater of the 70 Daytona 500 and next year we went there, also saw my first Grand National race at Beltsville on 5/16/70, which by the way was the last "Cup" race ever in Maryland Bobby Issac won followed by James Hylton and Bobby Allison. Then France stopped the GN division on the short tracks ( brilliant idea "NOT"!!!!) I followed the LMS and worked in from 73-81 until NASCAR screwed it up as faras i am concerned, But this site takes me back to an easier time and time when racing was fun THANK YOU JEFF!

well as long as i can remember, and now that i am a driver, and have been affiliated with the local track here my little girl is known as the one that was bottle fed at the track. man i love this sport

Since 1985 .. when Bill Elliott ruled!

You write the book, Tim...we'll help you promote it...lol. When did you attend Kingsort. Was it Dirt or asphalt...or contrete at that time


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Founder/Creator - RacersReunion®

May 9th 1978

My first memory of being interested came in 1962 when I was eight. My family was watching the tape delay coverage of the Southern 500 on Wide World of Sports. The race had been run a week or so earlier but I didn't know that. Richard Petty was leading when he cut down a tire with a couple of laps to go. Petty tried to win the race on three tires, but failed.A few months later during the 1963 season, my dad took me to Hillsboro, N.C. for a Grand National race. That was my first race in person. Among the drivers entered were Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, Nelson Stacy, Jim Paschal, Buck Baker,Bobby Isaac, and Joe Weatherly.I saw the final victory by each of the following... Weatherly 1963 at Hillsboro, Baker 1964 at Darlington, and Cale Yarborough 1985 at Charlotte. I saw Petty's 100th win at Bowman Gray Stadium.Best race that I've seen? Probably the 1980 World 600 where Benny Parsons and Darrell Waltrip swapped the lead multiple times over the last 25 laps. The entire race was good as the boxy Monte Carlos and T-Birds drafted well. Hard to believe it's been that long ago.

I've been a race fan for 18 years. I saw a race on t.v. in 1990, and I've been hooked ever since.

I live up here in Long Island but when I was like a kid like 12 I like watching it on tv when it first was on I was the only one in my family and friends that watched it I got my dad to watch it he liked it so When Islip seedway was open I went to a race I loved it I been a gear head sice I left the wooom the only thing is now they are selling Riverhead raceway one of the longest running figure 8 tracks still around I know Hummfy Wheeler wanted to build a track here but the goverment here sucks they say its to redneck Ya would be great to have one here I go to Lowes when I vist family in NC I would like to go to Daga or Daytona

I have been a race fan for years but I truly started enjoying it and learning about all the ins and outs since 2006. Other than scrapbooking I love watching the Sundays races the most.

for 28 years oh i am showing my age but it does matter cuz i love my nascar. I started with going to dirt tracks and then I got the nascar bug and have been a huge fan ever since. Its the only sport if you ask me. rest in peace DALE EARNHARDT we miss and love you. you brought nascar where it is today.

been fan sense 75 i love itid love go daytona dega is awesome been there didnt wana come bk home

i have been a fan sense 1975 been hooked ever sense the roar of engines n the smell of fuel just does some thing to u cried whein i 1st saw dale sr qualify to n that was at dega

Hi Clance and went to my first race in 1965...Curtis Turner won and it was first race at Rockingham, NC, Called the American 500 at that time.

Hello,Started August 11, 1957 at Martinsville,Va. Glen Wood started outside pole and took the leadon the first lap and stayed there for the first 17 laps then the engine blew. Glen finshed last.I've been a Woodbrothers Fan since.ThanksHarlow ReynoldsLynchburg,Va.

Fan since age two. Dad would take me to the local dirt tracks and I got a ride in a dirt late model at age two for fan appreciation night at Muskingum County Speedway. Before I could walk, he would take me round and round the dining room table on my little plastic indy car. Faster and faster he would go sliding and I just kept hanging on, laughing! "No problem...dad!" Probably age one. Well, probably before birth, dad would read to me when I was still in my moms belly,"A Day at the Races With Kyle Petty" I guess before I was born. LOL! Dad and grandpa Jack started taking me to the Daytona 500 when I was age five. At age nine I started my racing career. From before birth and the rest is history. Over 15 years!

Guess i was about 11 my father took me to see Richard Pettys car , i got to have a poster autographed and he shook my hand, as a teen i had a freind into dirt stock cars , and now if it has wheels and an engine and its racin ill watch !!

I remember my parents taking me to Slinger Speedway as a kid to watch the stockers run the oval and the figure-8's. I started following NASCAR in 1983 when CBS had a camera in race winner Cale Yarborough's car. I became a big Dale Earnhardt fan (still am). I still watch and occasionally attend NASCAR races, though my interest has waned some over the last 5 years, thanks to aero-push, COT, and TV doing PR for certain drivers.

Sense 1999 when I was working at Home Depot and heard they were going to sponsor Tony and he was driving for Joe Gibbs. Went to my first race that tear and been a diehard ever sense. Looking to learn more about legends of nascar.

That's pretty much what happened to me. My husband and I were open wheel fans back then. We could get those races on Network TV, here in New England, but ESPN's coverage of stock car racing was terrible and we didn't watch much. When it finally improved...around '92...we began to get interested, and the rest, as they say,is History. My husband grew up with a guy named Bill Elliott, so...Awesome Bill became his natural choice for a favorite driver.My first was actually Jeff Gordon, because I didn't have to strain my eyes to find the "rainbow".I guess I was a casual fan until 1996, but my husband passed away that September and it was almost a year before I went back to look, since Lee & I had enjoyed it so much together. The driver who had become one of my "Big 3", had won the WC championship that year and I hadn't even known it. The other 2? Rusty & Sterling.I still enjoy racing and I probably always will, but never again as much I did when those 3 were racing.I will be privileged to see Sterling race at the 'Plex on August 30th...and I pray I'll be able to meet him, if only to shake his hand and simply say "hello"...assuming I can do that without tripping over my tongue!And PS...I love this site!

Shoot I don't remember, I know my first memories were of Geoff Bodine racing at Chemung Speedrome which my dad says we had been going there for a few yrs until it closed in 79.I also watched the 79 Daytona 500 which was one heck of a race.So I figure I have been a fan for all my life or at least for 35 of my 38 yrs.

I've been a race fan for 40 somethin years. I loved racin the way it used to be. I still like racin. It just ain't the same.

Does anyone remember when Mike McLaughlin ran DIRT Modifieds in his native upstate NY? Well, that was in the late 70's when I was about 6 or 7. That's when I attended my first race and I've been a racing fan ever since. DIRT Modifieds and NASCAR are what I follow, but will occasionally watch other forms of racing.

Unfortunately, I didnt enjoy racing until later in my life,I was enjoying racing VW dragsters on local dirt 1/8th mile dragstrips. I moved to Atlanta Georgia in 1986 and a good friend of mine introduced me to what was then "Winston Cup Racing". My first live race was at the old Atlanta motorspeedway, (before they messed with it). At the time I was driving a Black VW Beetle and the only black car I saw on the track was the Number 3 car, since I didnt have a favorite driver at the time I started pulling for Dale....well the rest is as they say "history" as you may or may not know Dale Earnhart Sr. pretty much owned that track, dominated all day and won! Well from then on I was a "3" fan! My friend commented to me on the way home "My Gawd I've created another Earnhardt fan! This was the era of Buicks, Oldsmobiles Pontiacs, Chevrolets and Fords and all the great drivers were still driving, the Allisons, The King,,Dave Marcis, Aj Foyt, I went back and read about these and other drivers and how they had contributed to the sport before I started watching and since. Now my wife and my daughter are vivid race fans and we attended their first race back in Talladega in 2001 and sat right down by the track so my wife could see hear and smell what Nascar Racing was about. Needless to say during lap 3 when everyone stood up and held up 3 fingers for their salute to Dale, my wife was in awe of the outpouring of support for our fallen friend and the fact that they came past her at 200 mph blowing her cap off and putting tire bits all over her, she knew she was hooked just like I was back in 1986

MY FIRST RACE3 WAS AT RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY IN 1965 WITH MY DAD & MY BIG BROTHER I'VE SEEN ALL THE BEST DRIVER RACE THERE FROM RICHARD PETTY TO RUSTY WALLACE & ALL IN BETWEEN THERE WILL NEVER BE A TRACK LIKE RIRAGAIN THE 2 ROAD RACES THEY HAVE NOW BOTHSUCK THEY SHOULD RACE AT ROAD AMERICA & LAGUNASEGA . THE GLEN HAS HISTORY BUT SEAR POINT DOESN'T . I'M GOING TO INDY THIS YEAR FOR GOOD .GOOD BYE CAILF. UNTIL I MOVE THERE I'LL BE HER IN CALIF.

I've been interested in NASCAR since 1961. My Dad, A.C. Goines, became President of Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1961. He and a lot of other people helped pull the track out of bankruptcy.I still have some of the early programs from the races. If anyone wants me to scan pictures of your favorite old school drivers, let me know and I will send them by email. They are in black and white, though! (Talk about OLD SCHOOL!!!)Jane Goines Hall

I became a race fan about the time I became a sports fan. I recall going to a motorcycle race north of Columbia, SC when I was three years old. Anyone who knows me is aware that was a lonnnnng time ago. I don't know what they called it then, but I remember it looked a whole lot like what has more recently been known as Motorcross...over hills, and jumps.While my dad had been a fan before WWII, he picked it up afterwards continuing travels to the Daytona Beach sand and road course, up to Langhorne, PA, then to Lakewood in Atlanta...and at Columbia Speedway when it opened in 1948.He was a regular with his Jeep Station Wagon in the infield (it was a great vehicle, with its high square fenders, for bullying his way out of the infield at any race track or football stadium.) He was at Darlington on the initial day of practice in 1950 and inside the oval on the very first Labor Day.He would have no problem in re-naming the Sprint Race in the spring to Southern 500...nor do I.My invovlement working in the sport began in 1962 upon my return from Dallas, TX where many weeks were watching open cockpit racing at Devils Bowl Speedway. I had departed for Texas the Monday after Richard Petty had won his first race at Columbia on July 19, 1959.A new promoter had taken over the half-mile track in Cayce, SC when I reurned and I began doing some of the track announcing, along with Bert Friday, and handled the publicity for the facility until it closed in 1977 and then eventually went up in smoke. The track layout is still there, surrounded on all sides by trees.What a great track that was.Coincidentally, I began working on the broadcast crews at Darlington, Charlotte and Rockingham until other activities began to take over with increased work as a football, basketball and baseball play-by-play announcer for colleges and high schools. My last big race was the National 500 in October 1981. I later worked with the now defunct New Columbia Speedway a few years later.I never lost my love for the sport and the fabulous guys - like the ones we interview at Racers Reunion Radio - who were on the tracks I covered. Those included Greenville-Pickens, Myrtle Beach, Savannah and Augusta. We kind of grew up together- Jarrett, Pearson, Isaac and the great Ralph Earnhardt and many more of course. They raced, I reported.My experiences and skills learned as a radio sports reporter led me to the work I'm doing with RacersReunion.com.Just talking with men like those revives some of my most enjoyble memories and reconnects me with incredibly gifted people. It will be even more fun once we inaugurate our live call-in talk show.I hope to continuing doing this till I can no longer think or talk. (My wife said that happened years ago.) As long as the Gilders and fans believe I can, I will.Jim Seay

When I was a kid in the early seventies, there was a gas station on the corner down the street from my house. Someone who worked at the station had built a bunch of stock car models and had them on display behind the counter. I thought those cars were the coolest things I had ever seen.About that same time, my dad used to take me to our local short track here in San Antonio (Pan American Speedway). Anybody remember that place?The track and the gas station are long gone, but the memories still remain. I've been a racing fan ever since.

ve been a race fan since i was 3 yrs old my older brothers would take me to islip speedway which was walking distance from our house we lived so close the speedway would give us free tickets everyweek so we wouldnt complain about the noise my brothers were mean to me they would makme do dares like jump off the dock at the marina or they wouldnt take me to the races so i had to jump and swim for it made me a good swimmer anyways as i got older i would travel with my brother-inlaw who helped the bob park the father of steve park build his first race cars and as i got older i would go into the pits and help out fuel runner excetra i worked behing the wall at pocono with bobs super speedway car and we also traveled the northeast and followed the modified tour ,riverside park,wall stadium trenton,new egypt,islip freeport.riverhead ,stafford springs,pocono are just a few of the speedways we went to so i got to watch alot of nascars greats comming up threw the ranks ,bodines,sacks.buchards,troyers,evans,the list can go on and on <,you mod drivers were an inspiration for my racing carear and thanks for the great memories

I spent summers with an aunt & uncle in Hickory, NC as a teenager in the 1950's. My uncle was a fan of stock car racing and used to take me to the races at HMS. Watching guys like Junior Johnson and Ralph Earnhardt got me hooked. I'll say I've been a fan for over fifty years.

My favorite answer to a question like this---Since Indycars had no wings, since sprint cars had no cages, since dragsters had the motor in front, and since the only thing on the hood of a NASCAR car was "427 C.I."

Two things were important to my attachment to racing. I loved my indescribably successful and humorous sports fanatic dad who took me to my first motorsports event when I was three. His favorite was stock car racing. When he was a teenager, used to go to places like Langhorne, Daytona Beach, Lakewood and the like. Once they built a half-mile dirt track in Columbia in 1948, he was a regular...and, when I could be there (or wasn't "grounded"), I was too watching the early greats win, seeing Richard run his first race at Columbia on July 12 1958 and winning his first, in a convertible, one year and one week later. Those are verfibable facts.I began working professionally as a publicist for several tracks and PA announcing at some on the system and had the honor of working radio broadcasts at Darlingotn,Charlotte, Rockingham and, when not at those spots, often did updated live reports from other tracks for major radio networks.When RacersReunion came along in 2008, it was a joy to get back to my roots after several years away with other business activities and the lack of a good local track after Columbia Speedway shut down.My recorded interviews with a variety of racers are found at Radio Interview Archives and in October, 2009, we're launching our LIVE Racing Talk Show...tentaively titled "Racing when racin was racin'".From my dad's early interest in racing, we've now moved to the fifth generation. In September 2009 my almost 3 year old great-grandson is also hooked and likes to join me as we go on-line to look at the great racing videos we have at RacersReunion.com. At the beach he has fun "racing the water" back to the sand.The question was "how long" have I been a race fan... as long as I can remember anything...but mostly that first time at a race track.Jim

5 yrs old2001 Daytona 500, not because of Earnhardt's death! That's the first racing memory.

well it goes back to the early 50's when my dad was racing all over the south east - i can remember an old car - i saw a picture of it later - it was a 40 ford coupe with a number X ! on it - we were living in Ware Shoals S.C. then and i remember he got in middle of road and done doughnuts forever it seemed so that would be in 1949 and that calculates to wow that puts me older than tim around 59 years ive been a gearhead diehard race lover forever i guess

Hello,My first Nascar race was August 11, 1957. at Martinsville Speedway. Amick on the pole Glen Wood outside.Glen took the lead on the first lap and lead for 17 laps. Then the engine BLEW. Glen finshed last.Thats when I started being a Woodbrothers fan and racing fan.ThanksHarlow ReynoldsLynchburg,Va.

First race Hinhcliff Stadium in Patterson N.J. a midget race (no not LITTLE PEOPLE). LONG time ago.

Hello Jeff,Please call me at 1-434-845-1388. Or 1-434-610-0950ThanksHarlow ReynoldsLynchburg,Va.

On national level 1965-2005. Hickory & Bownan Gray 1968- Nascar finds a way to ruin them until then one or the other every Saturday night.