CONCORD, North Carolina -- A guy in a Home Depot t-shirt, a woman in an Eldora Speedway hoodie and a kid in a Dodge drag racing hat walk up to a bar.
No, that's not the start of a joke. It's an image of reality. It was at Charlotte's zMax Dragway, site of the NHRA's fifth event of the season, the 4-Wide Nationals, held earlier this month on a 1,000-foot straight-line show palace built in the shadow of the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It was on that adjacent 1.5-mile oval that Tony Stewart won a NASCAR Cup Series race and the NASCAR All-Star Race, completed the second half of a pair of Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 one-day "Double Duty" marathons, and won a pair of pole positions in an IndyCar.