ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997 TAG: 9704170021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BRISTOL, TENN.
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
Bristol Motor Speedway smells like gasoline and exhaust, but inside Rusty Wallace's RV just outside the grandstand, it smells like pot roast.
Wallace, ranked 10th in points going into this weekend's Winston Cup race in Martinsville, sits in the driver's seat of his 40-foot home on wheels, while pilot Bill Brooks hunkers down on a leather couch to watch over the roast he started cooking at 9 a.m.
"Me, I'm good at microwaving and toasting stuff," Wallace says, giving a short tour of his recreational vehicle, a Fleetwood, one of his sponsors.
In the world of big-league racing, drivers and their crews are sometimes called NASCAR Nomads as they move from city to city during a season that runs from February to November.
They're away from home Thursday to Sunday most weeks to practice, qualify, race.
And, until they started buying RVs a few years ago, the drivers spent a big chunk of their days fighting race traffic and signing autographs.
"We used to stay in hotels, but there were so many fans," Wallace says. "They'd line up for autograph sessions in bars or restaurants." The drivers, who already make a number of public appearances, had no privacy, and only a few of the hotels had restaurants suitable for their young children.
Wallace and other drivers talked about their lives on the racing circuit during last Friday's qualifying for the Food City 500.
The RVs, now owned by most of the Winston Cup drivers and some of the Busch Series drivers as well, constitute a custom-made refuge, a place where NASCAR heroes and their families can live a quasi-private life behind a fence and a few strategically placed pine trees. A place where they can eat whatever they want and serve the children whenever they're hungry, says Nancy Andretti, wife of driver John Andretti and the mother of two.
"We try to make it as much like home as possible," she says, holding daughter Olivia, 2, and getting a little red fingerpaint on her shirt as a reward. They watch movies in their RV, an Overland, or visit with their next-door neighbors.
"We can borrow stuff from each other, too," she says. "It's just like a little community. Everybody knows everybody."
Next door to Wallace's RV is another Fleetwood owned by his dad, and two more, for brothers Kenny and Mike, who also are Winston Cup drivers.
"Saturday night, there will be a helluva cookout, right out there," Wallace says.
Perhaps it makes sense for men who earn their living on wheels to actually live on wheels, too.
Add into that mix a garage on wheels (a tractor-trailer called a "transporter" or "hauler" by the drivers), and these folks spend more than half of their time atop something stenciled with names like Goodyear.
"Just about the only time we're not in something with wheels is when we walk from here to there or when we're standing in the pit," John Andretti says.
At some tracks, especially ovals like Bristol where the RVs aren't kept in the infield, the drivers use golf carts to run between their homes and the transporters, which sit side-by-side at the center of the speedway's roaring ant farm.
The transporters are painted to match the cars, with the sponsors' names and logos on the sides: Miller Lite, Skittles, Tide, Kellogg's. There's enough equipment on board each hauler to rebuild a 3,400-pound car from scratch.
Wallace's transporter, for instance, carries three engines. In the upper quadrant is a second car.
Downstairs are lockers for the crew, drawers for every conceivable nut and bolt, cabinets for springs and shocks, and counters for computers. There are lounge areas, too, for meetings or relaxing, along with TVs hooked to satellite dishes. On rainy days, the lounges host an occasional card game.
The tractor-trailers are heavy. The one belonging to Rusty Wallace's team weighs about 80,000 pounds, according to Earl Barban, who drives it. During the day, Barban cooks for the crew. He pauses to grab a set of torches and a welder and brings them to Wallace's waiting Ford Thunderbird.
From an observation tower on the hauler's roof, teammates carefully watch the timing laps. "Right now, we have the fastest running car out there," says Wallace's team spokesman, Tom Roberts.
The hauler also has a storage spot for a barbecue pit. Hot lunches are Barban's specialty. Today he has a selection of Italian sausage, steak, and skinless, boneless chicken breasts.
"I'm kind of like the den mother," he says.
When qualifying is over, the drivers go "home," where they can shower off the dust that comes with traveling at 100 to 190 mph, depending on the track.
During the day, there can be 20 people inside one RV for a team meeting. At night, the RVs are reserved for family and friends.
The proximity to the track keeps the drivers from being late to required meetings, and keeps them out of traffic tie-ups like the one in Texas the previous week, which was hours long.
To make the RVs a little homier means customizing them and adding personal touches.
For Wallace, it meant raising the counters. He's 6 feet 1, and his wife, Patti, is 5 feet 9. It meant installing a porcelain toilet seat (many RVs come with plastic) and a full-size refrigerator.
It also meant finding special shades that could make his bedroom feel like 10 p.m. at lunchtime.
"I sleep better in this than at home," he says. "We have a special mattress and can make it dark as hell."
For the Andrettis, homier meant more room - they have an RV with a section that slides out, enlarging their living area by three feet. It meant a booster seat for Olivia, a travel bed for Jarett, 4, a few Barney videos and a stack of lawn chairs.
"What we have here is a traveling neighborhood," says Jackie Pegram, who lives in an RV that would be the equivalent of the neighborhood church.
Pegram and her husband, Ron, are part of Motor Racing Outreach. Services are held in the track's garage area, but Bible study for the drivers' children is in the RV.
"Usually, you don't have the preacher living right beside you," Pegram says.
There is no place in the pit for children during race time, and nobody to watch them in the stands, so they come here instead. "They've lived, eaten and slept races," Pegram says. "They're not too concerned."
During race weekends, the kids, some who don't arrive at the track until Friday night after school, spend several hours in Pegram's RV, where she cooks up vegetable soup while watching the qualifying runs on TV.
"Kyle Petty's 10th," says Josh Kemp, 11, who is visiting the RV with his grandmother, Nora Carrier.
"His daughter comes to Bible study," Pegram replies.
As do many drivers, the Pegrams live near Charlotte and travel from race to race. At Talladega, Ala., they set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids. In the evenings, they have Bible study sessions with a few of the drivers.
After qualifying ends, the smell of grilling fills the RV neighborhood. Two girls roller-skate across the pavement. Jarett Andretti, who plans to be a bear hunter in Africa rather than a race car driver in Charlotte, climbs aboard a plastic motorcycle. Sister Olivia gets on a smaller version, and the two ride back and forth between their parents' RV and the vehicle belonging to driver Jeff Burton and his wife, Kim.
Near the front of the camp, a Tennessee police officer watches the fans who stand with their T-shirts, programs and picture cards ready for the signature of any driver who emerges from beyond the gate. It's as if he's guarding Graceland.
"This is the only way to live as far as the lifestyle we're living," John Andretti says. "For what we do, it's ideal."
He will not live this way when he retires, though, however many years from now that might be. "When I'm 60, I think I'll be happy to stay at home."
LENGTH: Long : 158 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Driver Mikeby CNBMcLaughlin enjoys a cup of coffee and relaxes with his girlfriend,
Katie Gregory, in a transporter after he qualified for the Busch
Series race. The tractor-trailer serves as a garage on wheels and
includes a kitchen, conference room and even a spare race car. 2.
Olivia and Jarett Andretti tear around the speedway parking lot near
their family's RV. The lot is guarded so that the families can have
some privacy. 3. Custom tractor-trailers (or ``transporters'') line
the infield of the Bristol Motor Speedway during qualifying on April
11, 1997. 4. Olivia and Jarett Andretti, their grandmother, Lois
Summers, and mom, Nancy Andretti, enjoy the shade of the family's
RV. 5. Rusty Wallace checks the progress of a pot roast his pilot,
Bill Brooks, has been cooking in the kitchen of Wallace's home away
from home. 6. Winston Cup NASCAR racer John Andretti, his wife,
Nancy, and their children, Jarett, 4, and Olivia, 2, get comfortable
in the master bedroom of their RV - stopped temporarily across the
parking lot from the Bristol Motor Speedway track. 7. Rusty Wallace
(center) hangs out in his customized Fleetwood with team members Tom
Roberts (left) and Bill Brooks. color.