If you have been a NASCAR fan for any period of time, you know that there are claims that nearly half of the fan base is female. Experts out there say the number continues to grow, so the assumption could be made that one day there will be more women than men following NASCAR. As I have never heard of a sport where the fans are mostly female, this really piques my interest.

Think of this scenario, if you will: Hillary Clinton has won the ’08 election, and is striving hard to lead a country, while working on her public relations. To temper the perception that she is too upper-class to relate to the stereotypical racing fans in the country, she and the First Man attend the 2010 Daytona 500. She is photographed with Mike Helton and Brian France, and only later is it realized there is a female fan in the background holding up a sign that says, “Hillary! Teach Mike and Brian how to runs things!”

While panning the audience following the National Anthem, a whole section of women are shown with their faces painted to match their favorite drivers’ colors, raucously hollering his last name and number, followed by a guttural ‘yeeeaaaahhhhhhhh he’s the man!’ Dave Burns does a pre-race segment on a group of women who have arrived from North Carolina in a school bus painted in ‘Budweiser red’, complete with every decal and sponsor logo carried on their hero’s racecar. Once settled in the infield, they have managed to drink enough beer to nearly make a life-size replica of Kasey Kahne’s No. 9 Dodge with the empty cans, and gleefully suggest that any ‘Allstate girls’ in the area are welcome to come and try to smash it up.

The men who attend the race with the women roll their eyes a lot as their better halves carry on, pick fights with fans of drivers that are rivals to theirs, and curse loudly when their driver has a bad pit stop. Once the race is over, many of them grumble about having to be the designated driver again.

Perhaps the above scenario is too far-fetched, but maybe not. If you had told someone at the beach in Daytona in the 1950s that one day NASCAR would be so famous and appealing that open-wheel drivers were looking for rides, I am sure they would have sneered, too.