It’s taken about a week to process all of the information you are about to see…and most of the alcohol that was consumed over a weekend that saw all sorts of debauchery, from hot tubs and dance floors to Elvis actually showing up to a crowd of drunken partygoers at 11:30 at night. Miraculously, there were no injuries, nobody got sick, and most of us still had money in our wallet. Except maybe for the guy driving the RV…gas prices, regardless of where they are, blow when you are the one feeding the mobile apartment complex. This is what happened when the Junkyard Digs crew and BangShift.com’s Resident Delinquent met up for a weekend of camping and fun at Kansas Speedway for a weekend of racing.

This is your language warning. From here on out, the story becomes completely accurate, honest, and uncensored.

Kevin Brown, the ginger-bearded revival guru behind the Junkyard Digs YouTube channel, and I, have been friends for a bit. We have plenty of things in common: we’re both Army veterans with aviation pasts (he worked on CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters while I worked on OH-58D(R) Kiowa Warrior scout birds. We both have a strange habit of buying random junk cars in the hope that joy comes out of them, and we both somehow lucked out and wound up working in this field. My story is pretty well-known here…I met Chad in Bonneville and Brian in Las Vegas, somehow made a positive impression, and in 2014 they offered me a full-time gig. Kevin had made a batch of videos just before his National Guard unit got shipped halfway across the world to a place I’ve been twice myself, and shortly after he started uploading videos he started to notice that people were watching them. Throwing a pissed-off possum off of an engine will do that. Ever since he figured out that I was showcasing his stuff, we’ve chatted quite a bit but we’ve only met in person once before, at the Kentucky Speedway stop of the 2019 Power Tour. And that wasn’t quite the visit it should have been. I was constantly flying off to get photographs, while he was helping Dylan McCool and the guys from DeBoss Garage with their mechanical maladies while simultaneously playing the role of Professional YouTuber to fans.

Fast forward a couple of years, and other than playing Grand Theft Auto every now and then and a rare video call, we hadn’t seen much of each other. Originally, I was slated to take part in his recent Grand Prix Grand Prix, but the timing couldn’t have been worse: it was the exact same weekend as LS Fest West 2022, and there was no way I was getting out of that. But he did mention going to a NASCAR race and camping in the infield again, this time in a larger motorhome than the 1977 Ford-based Coachman Class C camper he used the last time he took one to a NASCAR race. I was down, so I put in for a four-day weekend, packed up the Chevy Volt (gas prices? HA!), and prepared for my first experience with NASCAR since the time I drove the stock car in Las Vegas.

FRIDAY, May 13

At 8:00 A.M, the Volt crawled out of the driveway and began its trek westward towards Kansas City. The route was simple enough, one I’ve taken many times over the decades: north to Evansville, Indiana, then west on Interstate 64 to St. Louis, where I’d move to Interstate 70 and ride it out until I was on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan. Outside of a text forty-five minutes into the trip asking if I was already on the road, Kevin seemed to be on-time as well…at least, on my end.

This was supposed to be our home on wheels for the weekend. But by Thursday afternoon, it was very clear that this 454-powered Class A Winnebago wasn’t going to do a damn thing except provide video content. Not only was the carburetor not having it, but the head gasket was popped, the brakes were questionable and the tires were, undoubtedly, and without question dangerous. Free or not, this thing wasn’t going to make it out of Kevin’s driveway without a major incident. Late Thursday, Kevin axed the big boy out of the picture and drug out the “Poopmobile”, a $500 1984 Chevrolet G30-based Midas Class C camper that (last I had seen) had structural integrity issues and and the RV equivalent of an impacted bowel.

About the same time Kevin and crew were gearing up to head out in the Chevy, I was having a heart attack while passing St. Louis Lambert International Airport. A Honda CR-V’s right-rear tire had popped and the outer hoop of the tire separated perfectly, moved into my lane, and had made a beeline straight for my car. After missing the carcass and managing to not get slammed from behind by a Super Duty that was locking its brakes behind me, a lunchtime stop was required. Once I made sure my shorts were still clean, I sat down to a burger and got a text from Kevin:

Kevin Brown: “Well we’re off to a late start, and on top of that right as we start heading out the driveway the water pump starts weeping. Fuck it. Here we go.”

Despite the best efforts of St. Louis’ psychotic drivers and the dragging, choked clusterfuck that is traffic between the center of STL and the west side of Wentzville, Missouri, I managed to arrive at Kansas Speedway ten minutes ahead of the Iowa crew. Since I had to purchase my entry on-site, I had to wait for Kevin, Mook, Phoenix and the mighty Midas to roll into view. As monster diesel-pusher mansions on wheels and Rams hauling huge fifth-wheel trailers that cost twice what my house cost cruised on by, there was no mistaking the sound of a smog-choked 350 turning the corner. The Chevy was pretty much a full-blown offense to every other RV on-site. After getting our passes, parking the Volt in overflow parking, and letting some poor drug-sniffing dog get a huge whiff of the Poopmobile while searching for possible contraband, we were on our way.

(Now that I’m writing this…did Kevin give a German Shepard PTSD?)

My first impressions of the Poopmobile were…surprisingly positive. Sure, it was a visual poke in the eye compared to expensive-ass Newmar motorhomes. But certainly didn’t smell like twenty tons of raw sewage and amazingly, it wasn’t boiling hot inside either. It ran like a champ and didn’t sound like it would collapse, and the roadside disco couch that Kevin had manhandled into the spot where a table/bed combination used to be would make for a perfect bed. At least, it had better, because that was my home for the weekend. Like every other old, sketchy couch found in the basement, it was unrealistically comfortable.

For those who aren’t familiar with how infield camping works at NASCAR tracks…well, research it, because I’m still trying to figure it out. The rough idea is that you rent a plot of land where you want to park for the weekend in some kind of lottery system. Kevin wanted to be as close to the inside of a turn as possible, and our first parking spot put us in the middle of Turn 3. Hindsight later showed that if we wanted to see just about every crash that would happen over the weekend, we should have stayed here instead of moving to Turn 2 on Saturday, but at the time they were just happy to make camp and get to what Kevin kept referring to the “NASCAR experience”, which had nothing to do with racing. So we set out the chairs and the funky “carpet” (really, plasticky floor covering raided from the dead Winnebago) and Kevin whipped up the first drink of the day, a “Beer Shot”.

“Beer Shot”: 3/4 shot of Licor 43 and float heavy whipping cream to create a mini-beer look. Tastes like a caramel milkshake, very smooth. Great for making friends, bartering amongst the locals or just enjoying.

Most of Friday night was simply chatting, laughing, and planning out how everyone was going to sleep. Then the decision was made to hike it out to a nearby restaurant called “José Pepper’s”, a place that Kevin and Mook adore. Phoenix, rightfully concerned about eating Mexican food before sleeping with three other people in a Chevy van with aspirations, just had two plain tacos. The rest of us didn’t think about that, enjoyed our food and margaritas, and after making our way back to the track, we walked a lap of the track campground. We found the guy who brought a hot tub, and we found the DJ booth and dance floor.

Once we got back to our spot, we sat around and chatted until we were ready for bed. With the generator running, the air conditioner chilling us out and everybody socked away to their assigned sleeping quarters, we crashed out.

Until sometime in the early morning hours, when José Pepper proved to be the ultimate asshole, at least in my book.

Saturday, May 14

Morning came early for Kevin and I. We both made our way out to the chairs as the sun was just beginning to lighten up the sky, leaving Mook and Phoenix to sleep. While slowly coming to terms with last night’s decisions, we were making progress right up until 6:30 A.M., when Kansas Speedway’s PA system started blaring out the classic tune, “Here Comes The Sun”, in a move that made us both think that someone at the controls had a vile sense of humor. Annoyed, we decided that we’d be better off with breakfast, so we dived back into the RV. I took refuge on the couch while Kevin started warming up sausage breakfast sandwiches on the propane stove for everyone. Phoenix rose long enough to accept and eat his sandwich, then proceeded to return back to his coma, cuddling the paper plate.

While we were in a great spot to observe early testing of the ARCA and Trucks, Kevin was in stir. The “NASCAR experience” that involved friends, food, and everything else he wanted us to have wasn’t anywhere near us. Instead, what I suspected was a modified MCI or Thomas bus sat two rows away, menacing us. We stuck around past a lunch of barbecued hot dogs and burgers, along with the occasional Beer Shot, but sometime in the early afternoon, after Phoenix and I had hopped back into the air-conditioned camper for a quick nap, Kevin had finally had enough and started to pack up to move. We left Turn 3 and moved over to Turn 2, where he had found friends from his trip last year. They had an open spot, we were welcomed to it, and judging from the sound of things, we were going to be in for a treat.

We spent the afternoon watching the ARCA race and NASCAR qualifying laps before diving off of the deep end. That evening, we were treated to the Truck race, but more importantly we were simply treated. One of the neat things about camping in the infield is that it seems like everybody is in a good mood, plenty of people are somewhere between “content” and “happy drunk”, and everybody becomes friends:

“Hey, we made burritos, come get one!”

“We whipped up some margaritas! Take one!”

“You look thirsty. Here’s a piña colada!”

“We made pasta! Get yourself a plate!”

And there was the music, too. Besides the PA music, we had thumping music in the form of a wagon with a boombox being towed by somebody’s mom who was dancing her ass off unabashedly. (I’d share the video, readers, but the YouTube algorithm doesn’t want you to hear bad 2000s pop music. Sorry!)

I kept up until about ten at night, when the responsible adult side of me (who is long past his brutal drinking days) decided to wisely retire for the evening. Phoenix didn’t do any of that and instead went full-tilt until sometime before one in the morning. I know that because I woke up and walked outside for a bit. Phoenix was in his cubbyhole in the back, deep in slumber, but one of the dudes next door was crashed out in his lawn chair, fast asleep.

SUNDAY, May 15

You know that really good early-morning sleep, the kind you can just fall back into without effort? Yeah…I was right there. I had woken up at six in the morning to hit the porta-potty, and had checked the weather. Rain was inbound, we knew, but at that moment it was one small cloud, barely a rain shower.

By eight in the morning, that happy little cloud became a real motherfucker and Kevin and I wound up scrambling to get everything out of the way before it pissed all over our parade.

The video does not do justice to what we got hit with. We got hail and about three inches of downpour within thirty minutes, followed by regular, heavy rain for another hour or so. Phoenix, true to form, remained in a coma until well after noon, a result of his socialization time earlier in the night.

By the time the rain had subsided and I was getting ready to step out of the camper and make my way to the portable shower trailers to make myself acceptable, there was standing water everywhere. There was also a shopping cart that somehow had magicked itself next to the port-a-john sometime overnight. Happily, the AdventHealth 400 was scheduled to run at two in the afternoon and the sun had come out. So as most of the water evaporated, we topped off the coolers, moved the chairs to the roof of the Chevy, and prepared to enjoy the race. As the burgers were grilled, the National Anthem played, and the A-10 Warthogs flew overhead, we settled in and for 267 laps of Kansas Speedway, we watched cars drive in circles.

Here’s the thing: most of the racing, from where I sit, was just “alright”. I really dig the tight pack racing you see at starts and re-starts after a caution. That shit is like watching forty drivers pretend to be the Blue Angels for a few laps. That rules. But then they spread out and until something happens, it’s just lap after lap. In fact, outside of those moments, the only other racing I paid much attention to was the final fifteen laps of the AdventHealth 400, when Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson were going for the win. Larson drove his ass off in a car that was loose (a few times we watched him smear blue paint onto the outer wall and once we saw him drift out of Turn 2 fully crossed-up) but Busch just had a monster under the hood and it was only a matter of time before he captured the checkered flag.

Instead, what I enjoyed about the weekend was the camaraderie, coupled with Kevin’s budget plan. We lived just fine in the $500 RV. We were comfortable. So long as you didn’t stick your head in the fridge, it was no worse than any other RV out there. (I did experience the fridge. The smell hits like a Butterbean right cross and gives you a glimpse into Hell for a moment, as if you were John Constantine.) We had air conditioning. We had hot breakfast sandwiches. And I’m pretty sure that Kevin didn’t need to bring nearly anything with him other than more stuff for Beer Shots, because that was how he made friends. We had Hailie Deegan and Chase Cabre swing by and say hello, and they walked out to our campsite and did photos with fans while chatting it up. I slept great on a couch found near a pizza joint on the side of the road. Everybody went out of their way to make all of us feel welcomed, and outside of a couple of people Kevin knew from the 2021 race, these were just random folk.

The cost of the trip? Fuel, food, the right taillight of the Chevy that got broken when my size 15 stepped on it instead of the ladder to the roof (sorry again, Kevin!) and the damage that was sure to be endured when eating Mexican food. I might not be a fan of NASCAR racing overall, but bet that I am down to camp in the infield anytime. Where else will someone dressed as Elvis or Captain Obvious offer you food and drink and hospitality?

…and you thought I was kidding. HA!

Ultimately, though, everything has to end. As the post-race ceremonies got underway, we packed up the Chevy and headed towards the tunnel out of the speedway. After making sure that the Volt could escape the mud pit that parking had become, I split off from the Junkyard Digs gang and bolted back east, cannonballing all the way back to my house. A midnight trip through St. Louis while following a convoy of brilliantly lit-up NASCAR haulers just made this whole experience complete.

There’s my words. But just in case you need a visual, here’s the video of the fun: