Red Necks, White Socks, And Blue Chip Sponsors

`Ladies and gentlemen, start your six-packs," yells the front-page headline of the Birmingham Post-Herald for Friday, July 22. Early the next morning, the serious beer-guzzling has begun. Horns are honking, Confederate flags are flying, and a line of cars and pickups stretches four miles down Alabama's Route 77 toward Talladega Superspeedway, home of the Die-Hard 500 stock-car race.

This is NASCAR, and these are 100,000 of its fans. Most are wearing gimme caps and T-shirts bearing the likenesses of favorite drivers or of local hero Davey Allison, a second-generation stock-jock from nearby Hueytown, Ala., killed last year in a helicopter crash. "These people are a little different breed," says Tony Black, a 38-year-old Birmingham firefighter. "They're groupies. People get in fistfights about these races."