The interior of my ’84 Camaro is muggy and messy.

Muggy because my air conditioner’s broke. Again. (My car gets more parts fixed than Bob Barker’s Kitten and Puppy Ranch.)

Messy because once the car quit caring for my wallet, I quit caring for it.

So Saturday night, I rolled down the windows, decided against throwing junk out the driver side, and pointed it towards Des Moines and my internship.

Sixty miles separated the ’84 from WHO-TV. Reflecting on life and sports easily filled the void.

I’m not a car guy. Probably why I’m not a NASCAR guy.

I don’t get NASCAR.

It’s the only race of its duration where the scenery never changes.

Interspersed with the urban sprawl of the Boston Marathon, you might see a river or a cow in the background.

Interspersed with the sand in Dubaii or wherever the dune buggies race for like, two weeks, you might see an oasis or Dikembe Mutombo in the background.

But with NASCAR, it’s just cement and cars and left turns. Cement. Cars. Merges left.

If that’s what I’m after, I can stand on the back porch, look out onto the corner of 1st and Countrywood, and wait five seconds.

But aesthetic beauty from varying locales is not the point, NASCAR fans say.

Television doesn’t do it justice. You need to see a race in person to appreciate NASCAR, the argument goes.

Why should I see NASCAR in person?

I don’t want to watch it on television.

If Dude, Where’s My Car? comes to Broadway, I won’t buy a ticket.

I know it sucks.

Wait, wait, wait. I’ve made a mistake. So before you stamp out your Marlboro, and begin with the fussin’ and the feudin’, let me apologize, NASCAR fans.

The paraphrase five paragraphs back is not accurate.

More precisely, I’ve heard the television argument worded: You only seen NASCAR on television? If you ain’t gone to it in person, you ain’t seen NASCAR.

This is another reason I hesitate to embrace the sport. (And yes, it is a sport. If it’s as foolish and life-threatening as mountain biking down-mountain, it’s a sport.)

I love the English language. It isn’t used at stock car races.

I’ve only seen two in person. Both on dirt tracks.

The first time I should have brought my grammar and style book.

The second; I should have brought ear plugs.

Next time, I’ll bring both.

The curb in the visitors parking lot at WHO snapped me from my quasi-reverie.

I went inside and discovered I wouldn’t film the Barnstormers on this night.

Whew.

The idea of standing in an end zone, back hard against a cushioned wall, while a man whose stomach fills his jersey which fills my camera lens before his helmet fills my mouth, didn’t sound too appealing.

I went to the Des Moines Menace game instead.

There is no correlation between soccer and my car.

But I don’t like to run, and I type with my hands, so maybe that’s why I don’t get soccer.

I was surprised at the aluminum benches choked full with nearly 3,000 soccer fans.

These people were easily entertained.

They’d applaud a shot on goal.

I didn’t understand that one.

Do baseball fans applaud a flyball caught at the warning track?

Do football fans applaud a 3-yard gain to set up 3rd-and-10?

The kids behind me were the loudest.

They had these plastic horn/mega-phone dealies that were last used by Thor during the Ice Age. (Think a smaller version of the horns used during the Riii-cohh-laa ad campaign.)

Kids put these babies to their lips and buzzed, and everything came out sounding like a moose struggling to extricate lunch.

They thought it was great fun.

So much so that they wouldn’t drop it. Even after one Thor Jr. went “Guys, enough.”

If I didn’t have to film the “action,” I would have snapped a horn over my knee and said, “Now play it.”

The ball rarely ventured 30 yards from either side of the center line. My camera spent a lot of time imprinting the grass.

The fans were enthused over the international appeal.

This reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons:

A new soccer league came to town.

In the American broadcast booth the game was called thusly: “Center passes to the wing…The wing passes it back to the center. Center holds it… holds it… huh, holds it.”

But in the international booth: “Center passes to wing. Wing passes it to center. Center holds it. Holds it! HOLDS IT!

The Simpsons I get.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Hubbard.