As someone who has spent a lot of time around race tracks, there are certain moments where you have to stop working for a second and just take it all in.
Watching IROC come back in Washington, D.C., is one of those moments.
I’m standing here watching Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Bobby Labonte and Kurt Busch climb into IROC Pontiac Firebirds, and honestly, it’s hard not to geek out a little bit.
These are guys many of us grew up watching on Sundays. Guys whose names are permanently attached to some of the biggest moments in NASCAR and IndyCar history. And now they’re back in race cars, actually racing each other, with the Washington Monument sitting behind them.
How cool is that?
Then you add Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti to the mix, and you’ve got this ridiculous collection of racing talent from different generations and different disciplines all sharing the same track.
That’s what I love about IROC. Strip away the team politics, the manufacturers and the million-dollar engineering programs. Everybody gets the same car. At the end of the day, it’s just driver versus driver.
And getting to see that happen in the middle of the nation’s capital is something I don’t think any of us will forget.
As a motorsports journalist, I’m lucky enough to cover some pretty incredible races. But sometimes the coolest stories aren’t necessarily the main event.
Sometimes it’s standing trackside, hearing those old Firebirds fire up and realizing you’re watching something you never thought you’d see again.
