Bears Get Around: Cabarrus County, North Carolina

Wow! Let me just catch my breath here. And tidy up a bad case of “helmet hair” …

There! That’s better. My buddy, Burrage, just took me for a spin in his racing car.

Burrage comes by his interest in cars honestly – he’s from Concord, the county seat of Cabarrus County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. While Burrage himself is a teddy bear, he can tell you that about 11,000 wild bears flourish in North Carolina.

Cabarrus County is known as “the Center of American Motorsports.” Concord is home to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, one of the premier racetracks for NASCAR.

Have you ever watched NASCAR on television? Next to football, it’s the most popular sport on TV, watched by people in about 150 countries around the world. More than 1,500 races are held every year, at over one hundred racetracks in the U.S. and Canada.

NASCAR stands for “National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.”

People began racing regular automobiles, or “stock” cars, almost as soon as cars had been invented. One of the most popular places to race cars was on the hard-packed sands of Daytona Beach, Florida. In the late 1940s, a man named William France, Sr. founded the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing so that the drivers (and their cars) would be safer and evenly matched, thanks to good rules and standards.

Daytona Beach is still an important centre for NASCAR. Since 1959, races there have been held on the huge Daytona International Speedway.

Because so many drivers and their crews are based in North Carolina, the city of Concord is another important NASCAR centre. The NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in the city of Charlotte, 32 kilometres southwest of Concord, in 2010.

A NASCAR driver named Matt took Suzanne for a few spins around the Charlotte Motor Speedway. When I interviewed her afterward, she said that they hit speeds of 265 kilometres per hour!

Matt’s expert training, his high-tech car, and the banked racetrack are what made it safe to go so fast; remember, no one should ever try it without those kinds of safeguards.

Notice Burrage’s  T-shirt? He’s a big fan of Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a famous driver whose family has been important in NASCAR for generations. Mr. Earnhardt comes from the town of Kannapolis, North Carolina. He races a Chevrolet Impala, #88, for a team called Hendrick Motorsports.

Other auto racing teams based in Concord include Roush Fenway Racing, Yates Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.

A skilled driver like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is one big part of winning races – another is the specially engineered cars.

Yet another important element is how fast a driver’s “pit crew” can fill a gas tank, change the tires, and check over the car during a race. Here is a pit crew practicing to get their work done as quickly as possible. A skilled crew can change the tires and fill the tank in less than fifteen seconds!

 

Racing off to my next assignment, this is your B.C. correspondent, Bella Bella!

 

Story © S. Clouthier

Photos © S. Clouthier and D. Wei