{"id":5793,"date":"2008-05-15T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/mike-across-america-pit-stop-nine-talladega-speedway\/"},"modified":"2008-05-15T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T06:30:00","slug":"mike-across-america-pit-stop-nine-talladega-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/mike-across-america-pit-stop-nine-talladega-speedway","title":{"rendered":"Mike Across America Pit Stop Nine: Talladega Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/div>\n

I am, admittedly, not a NASCAR fan.  But like most other recent college graduates, I am a Will Ferrell fan, which is the main reason I was excited to see a sign on the road between Memphis and Atlanta that read: Talladega Speedway.  I called a friend of mine who is into NASCAR (really he’s a good guy, though) to tell him, and he laughed.  Apparently, NASCAR has two races a year at Talladega, and apparently, one of them happened to be going on that day, a fact that became apparent as we drove by a sea of RVs, Confederate flags, and discarded beer cans.  <\/p>\n


\"Photobucket\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s my understanding that between 300 and 500 THOUSAND people were in attendance, either in the speedway or parked on the lot outside.  I think Tony Stewart won.  <\/p>\n

“All that just to watch a bunch of guys drive around in circles,” I marveled as we drove past, four hours of road behind us and another two and a half ahead.  <\/p>\n

“What’s the appeal of all that driving?”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}