There surely are a lot of numbers associated with NASCAR. In the most obvious places, you can find numbers adorning the race cars and the T-shirts of loyal fans. And with really loyal fans, you might even see those same numbers permanently displayed on body parts.
400 - Wonderful Pistachios was recently named entitlement sponsor of this year's fall race. So the race will be called the Wonderful Pistachios 400, which, when you think about it, is pretty nuts.
14 - During the race, fans are allowed to bring their own food and beverages to the track, so long as they are in a soft cooler no larger than 14 by 14 by 14 inches. Every year, at least one guy gets confused and attempts to bring in a cooler the size of an SUV.
43 - There are 43 cars on the track, at least to start. I've always wondered what would happen if a wreck took out the entire field on the first lap except for a single car, leaving a lone driver who 100,000 people had to watch take left turns for four hours.
0.75 - The track at Richmond International Raceway is three-fourths of a mile long, a number that when converted into decimals is .75 miles, and when converted back into fractions is two-eighths of a mile because my calculator is broken.
10 - There's the number 10, which is the day of this month's big race, the second of two NASCAR events held here. And for Richmond, this means $450 million or so in economic impact, which makes local leaders' faces resemble a zero on its side, with the top half cut off.
130 - Sound levels at the racetrack reach up to 1,000 decibels, which you probably believe because the majority of people have no concept of decibel-level ranges. (It's more like 130 decibels, which is extremely painful on the ears. A thousand decibels would probably turn your body into mush.)
120+ - While NASCAR's cars sometimes reach speeds of 190 miles per hour on big tracks, at the short track in Richmond, they run in the mid-120s, a speed that, while slower, is still not recommended on public roads.
14 - The track banks 14 degrees in its turns, because race cars turn better in below-freezing temperatures.
