"Stand up and clap your feet"

Last night Dad and I went to "The Famed 1/4 Mile" at Bowman Gray Stadium to see the second double points night of the year. It was great to see packed stands and a full field of cars in every division.The fans at The Stadium are great, if you thought that the way the fans were portrayed on the TV show Madhouse was made up just for the show you would be wrong. Just go out to The Stadium one Saturday night and you will see what I mean, they are loud, passionate and active.

The racing action was also good. If Madhouse was still being made a lot of the action would have made the show, both during green flag runs and under caution.

By now you are thinking, O.K. but why is this discussion titled "Stand up and clap your feet"? Well if you are a regular listener to Racing Thru History you know that this is one of the now famous lines of "The Bopper" Bobby Williamson that is always played during the intro of the show and Jeff can be heard saying "I got a visual of that". Well everyone at The Stadium got such a visual Saturday night. You see they had the East Coast Stunters putting on a motor cycle riding exhibition and one of those guys would sit on the tank with his feet stuck out over the handle bars. He would pop-a-wheelie and as he rode down the track with his feet high in the air he would clap them together before setting the front tire back on the pavement.

I could not help but think, now that is a visual of "Stand up and clap your feet". Should have had a camera.

updated by @dennis-andrews: 12/05/16 04:08:38PM

Dennis, LOL!! I've never attended a race at 'the Stadium' but it's on my bucket list. In the summer of 1975 I was a student at UNC-CH summer school, and one Saturday night drove from Chapel Hill to 'the Stadium' for the weekly show. It was a classic July evening, hot, sunny, and just as practice was ending, a thunderstorm came out of nowhere and rained out the race. I've never gone back to redeem my rain check............but I need to!

The late Ray Melton, longtime Darlington Raceway announcer, had this spiel of ...."ladies and gentlemen, stand up, STOMP your feet, clap your hands, and send these drivers on their way in this.......Southern 500" I more or less botched the great announcer's intro.............creating the classic....."stand up CLAP your Feet!" LOL!

Hey Dennis, My son and I were also there Sat. night at our usual spot in section 23. It is always worth the price of admission at The Stadium. One of our friends was the center of action in the street stock race and the retaliation was the hightlight of our Red-Neck High-Holy Day. We normally sit around the same fans each time we go and all of us have gotten to know each other well. The Stadium always produces an entertaining show, especially on Ladie's Night. If NASCAR is in the entertainment business instead of the racing business, then The Stadium would win an oscar. All of our competitor friends make it worthwhile for us to go. The fans are among the most passionate that you will see. There is always disagreements of some sort, a lot of number one finger pointing, and last year, a great amazon fight... and that was just the Ladies! As our saying goes..."you can't beat it for ten dollars" at the place that is still the most exciting of them all. As for Ray Melton...'stand up, clap your hands and stomp your feet as here they come flat out and belly to the ground in the championship groove"..I think is the quote.

The Ray Melton quote I remember was made on the parade laps at Darlington. Ray was encouraging the crowd to 'send them on their way..."