NASCAR is the new black

It was among the most surreal moments of the year. I was in the blue carpet scrum in front of the Hollywood Avalon, watching Pharrell Williams and racecar driver Jeff Gordon work the press line. As they approached the People magazine crew I’m standing behind, Pharrell walks right up and shakes my hand. “I remember you from the last time,” he offered before returning to the sea of reporters, whom at this point are now all giving me the ol’ side-eye.

I guess I should have expected the unexpected at this bizarre collision of culture. It’s not everyday that one of the hottest producers in the game is scheduled to perform at a NASCAR event where Heidi and Spencer are signing autographs outside. It got even weirder inside, when I spied pro skater Terry Kennedy, rap star Common and singer Rihanna.

Of course, the cliché is that NASCAR is a sport even “whiter” than hockey, a southern-fried American tradition that also includes prominent display of the Confederate flag and exactly one African-American to ever win a Grand National title, Wendell Scott back in 1963.

But it was a rainbow coalition on the dance floor when N.E.R.D. finally took the stage for a quick, four-song set. Even though it took a couple of songs to get the crowd really fired up (“I hate corporate events” Williams sighed early in the set), once the band pulled a dozen or so young women onto the stage, the vibe was hot enough to get the cheese-eaters on the balcony to join the party. Even Common got up there and busted a wicked freestyle at the end of “She Wants to Move.”

Rappers rocking a NASCAR party? Yeah, right. Soon you’ll be trying to tell me that a woman is running for VP on the Republican ticket...

—Scott T. Sterling