Trip to Thunder Road doesn't disappoint

When your job takes you from race track to race track to race track, one right after the other, day after day each weekend, they all begin to blend. One is like the other -- crowded pit areas, dusty parking lots, bad food, too many divisions, too many inept wreckers, too much of the same thing over and over.

And then you walk over the top of the hill, and immediately Thunder Road Speedbowl in Barre, Vt., sets itself apart.

Certainly, all the elements are there.

The track itself is as unique as they come, a high-banked 1/4-mile that holds fast cars like they're running the spin cycle inside a washing machine. The views, of course, are amazing -- from the hillside grandstands the views of the racing are second-to-none, as are the views of the mountains all around Barre. The food is above-average track fare (though, in full disclosure, ever since my writing cohort Shawn Courchesne contracted food poisoning from a cheeseburger at the Waterford Speedbowl a few years back, I pass on concession stands), the people have a generally positive disposition and the racers race by rules they know all too well.

For most of Sunday, I was at a loss for words.

"Wow, a writer who's left speechless," said Thunder Road announcer Troy Germain. "That's saying something."

Indeed, it was.

How popular is racing at Thunder Road? In the support Tiger Sportsman division, more than 40 cars show up every week for one of fewer than 30 starting spots in the feature. According to Germain, nobody -- NOBODY -- has qualified for every feature this season. That they keep coming back says plenty, given the racer's penchant for hunting out greener (and less competitive) pastures.

But is as unique a place for racers as it is for fans?

"It's worse," Ben Rowe said after finishing 5th in the ACT Bond Auto Labor Day Classic 200. "This is a tough place."

The front gate admission is less than 10 bucks, fans can bring their own cans of beer and the program moves swiftly and energetically. No wonder the place is jammed -- for weekly Thursday night shows.

There are things about Thunder Road that I, personally, could do without. I don't need a hokey nickname for every driver ("Irish" John Donahue, winner of the 200, for example, is no more Irish than the spark plugs in my Subaru Forester), and some of the pomp and circumstance for a race a the local speedway is over the top. Of course, I'm wearing a media hat most days and not my fan tuk, and I don't want pomp and circumstance, I want to make deadline.

I'm aware that I'm not most people, that that kind of pomp and circumstance gives it all an "event" feel and keeps people coming back for more.

But if my biggest gripe is a bunch of nicknames, then there's not a whole heck of a lot wrong. I only wish it wasn't a 4-hour drive for me to the track, that more people could get there more easily. Then again, wouldn't it lose its charm, the way most things do, if it was so easily accessible?