Days Of Thunder was my brother’s go-to movie for showing off his surround-sound system, back when surround was the latest thing and movies had to be rewound. 1990 or so. I know I sat through at least one of these original showings. Since then, I’m sure I’ve caught pieces of the film over and over again by flipping through channels. But for the life of me, I can’t tell you how it begins, how it ends or what really happens in-between.

And yet, anytime someone mentions NASCAR, I hear Robert Duvall’s voice.

“No, no, he didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he rubbed you. And rubbin’, son, is racin’.”

All in all, that single line is probably the greatest accidental contribution to the American colloquial lexicon by a racing film, at least in the last two decades. Not only does it serve the story by justifying the jerk-assed behavior of the protagonist’s fellow drivers, but it lives outside the film to give a further blessing to similarly offensive interactions in our day to day human race. This it is quite insidious, because “rubbin’ is racin’” (the “son” endearment is dropped, usually) implies not only that fender-bruising asshats are an inevitability in life, but that they are to be accepted without question.

It is little wonder, then, that politicians are drawn in droves toward NASCAR.

That’s not fair, I guess. I don’t hate NASCAR, at least not so much anymore. Over the last few years, I’ve grown to appreciate it. Somewhat.

When you work for a company that sponsors a driver, you tend to pay attention to the results from weekend races. Our guy doesn’t have to win, which is good, because he doesn’t. But if he places somewhere in the top twelve or thirteen, then his points standing ought to be enough to keep him in the Race to the Chase — the NASCAR equivalent to playoffs. And conveniently, he’s a nice enough guy who doesn’t do anything stupid off the track. That’s a plus. But as far as watching the races goes, I can’t stand more than about fifteen minutes.

But fifteen minutes is all anyone needs of any NASCAR race. Tune in for the final twenty or so laps and you’re guaranteed to see some great driving, some awesome last minute gambles and maybe a wreck or two. My father-in-law has uncanny timing about turning on the television on Sunday afternoon at just the right time. As a result, during visits to the in-laws, I’ve seen the tail ends of about four really good NASCAR races. I can’t tell you who won them all, but they were fun to watch all the same.

There’s plenty of ambient politics to be found along a NASCAR track, what with all the big-money corporate sponsorship and the federal grants that probably went into the building of any given rural racetrack and let us not forget just how much precious, precious gasoline is being vaporized through a weekend of practice runs, time trials and the race itself. And yet the most heated politics of NASCAR falls not on the drivers, the car owners or even the sponsors, but on the sunburnt shoulders of the fans. They represent their very own demographic, and that demo is desired. Why? Two things. Mass and quality.

In today’s post about coming to love the sport, Sara nails the “quality” component squarely on the head:

[…] along the way I’ve found something appealing and endearing in the legions of fans who faithfully follow one driver, one sponsor, one car manufacturer just as they go to the First Baptist Church because that’s where their daddy went and his daddy before. The simplicity of their loyalty has actually grown on me.

The simplicity of their loyalty. What a beautiful way to put it.

What’s funny is that this kind of simplicity can be applied to so much more than just stock car racing. I’ve seen this measure of devotion up close and personal — occasionally, too personally — at science fiction conventions, at movie screenings or from behind the counter at a mall bookstore. With such great examples available for comparison, I can recognize it in the wild. If you know what to watch, you can see it just as clearly in a debate over the viability of the flat tax as you can in an argument over the better of two Star Fleet captains.

It’s called fandom. Granted, if you described a NASCAR fan’s devotion as fandom, he or she would likely punch you square in the mouth. But the term applies just as well in stock car racing as it does in the more stereotypical areas of sci-fi appreciation and Harry Potter speculating. Almighty Wikipedia agrees with me.

A fandom can grow up centered around any area of human interest or activity.

And those areas can have sub-areas and sub-sub-areas that then split into diametrically and triametrically opposing groups representing particular interests.

A Trek fan might only be interested in the first few seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but still find himself ridiculed mercilessly by other Next Gen fans because of his questionably positive appreciation of Ensign Wesley Crusher’s contribution to the Enterprise crew. A NASCAR fan might really only follow the race to race career of a particular driver, but should that driver switch to a different racing team or start driving an Impala instead of a Fusion (or vice versa), that fan’s choice might become driver non grata, never again to be spoken of. Fandom is never simple.

So how do you court a fandom? Sara’s post was inspired by Rudy Giuliani’s recent Grand Marshall-ing of the Pepsi 400. The wanna-be candidate for 2008 was in attendance because NASCAR fans (usually codified demographically as “NASCAR Dads” — sorry, ladies) have been targeted as a voting block. The chase for the elusive NASCAR Dad has been going on since 2002 or so. At the time, they were being claimed by the Democrats as a kind of rising force to be reckoned with. As of 2005, the right started claimed all the race fans for themselves, though as of last year, the truth polled somewhere in between …

A Zogby International poll in August showed a dramatic swing in NASCAR voter sentiments from 2005, when a strong majority voted to re-elect President Bush. Today, 56 percent now believe the nation is on the “wrong track” — and the NASCAR voters are now nearly evenly split in their preferences for Democratic and Republican congressional candidates in the fall, the poll showed.*

When Rudy made the rounds and signed autographs and did his best to show how much of a common man he really could try to be, I’m sure the NASCAR fans were nice enough and gave him a welcome that only frightened him on the inside. But they all knew why he was there, and it wasn’t to watch the race. He doesn’t have a favorite driver. He probably drives neither a Ford or a Chevy, if he ever drives at all. He was and remains an outsider to this target market.

But that’s got to be so frustrating to not only his campaign manager, but the managers of all the 2008 candidates. There they are, every Sunday or every other Sunday between now and November 18. This is the “mass” part of the equation. Tens of millions of fans who seem to be mostly conservative, except where their love of racing is concerned. When this season is done, they’ll be back again, race after race until a couple of weeks after Election Day. Unless any one’s camp can produce a candidate who is just as much of a fan (a real one) as the targeted population, any positive swings in their weekly straw poll means little more than a bunch of guys yelling “Rudy,” just because it’s a fun thing to say after a few beers.

Until then, to bastardize a poor phrase, this “rubbin’” elbows at the races is just for show. And what’s worse, the NASCAR fans aren’t being courted directly, but rather only used as a massive living sea of human backdrop for photo opportunities.

Of course, this raises another question.

If NASCAR is worth this kind of attention — I think it is safe to say that Rudy won’t be the last candidate to show up at the race track in khakis — then why aren’t other fandoms getting even more attention? After all, the six previous books in the Harry Potter line sold over 325 million copies worldwide. Seeing that Deathly Hallows is probably going to outstrip any previous record in the known history of book-selling, I’m wondering if anyone in the Obama camp has given serious thought to sending Barack and family to see a movie this weekend.