Cookin' with gas!

Fans and their track cuisine

Mario Batali gets revved up about NASCAR, Dover International Speedway fans and their track cuisine

BY PATRICIA TALORICO
THE NEWS JOURNAL
05/31/2006

Richard Petty was standing next to one of the country's best chefs but wasn't at all impressed with what he was dishing up.

It was the night before a 2004 NASCAR race at Dover International Speedway and Petty, the renowned king of the stock car racing circuit, came to a private dinner that Food Network host, restaurateur and cookbook author Mario Batali was preparing for drivers.

The redheaded, pony-tailed culinary star's spread included penne all'Amatriciana, pasta that's usually tossed with guanciale, or dried, salted hog's jowls, tomato sauce and red pepper flakes. The dish may be appreciated by the adventurous diners jamming the reservation book at Babbo, Batali's famed New York Italian ristorante, but it apparently didn't spark Petty's appetite.

"He comes and looks. And looks again. Then he goes, 'You got any steak?' " Batali, 45, says, chuckling during a recent phone interview.

"I said, 'Nooooo, but how about some pasta?' "

"He says, 'No thanks,' " Batali says, pausing dramatically, "then, he grabs a piece of bread -- and leaves!"

Letting The King walk away hungry may have been humbling experience at the time, but the story now cracks up the affable Batali, who breaks into a deep belly laugh.
Count the Petty encounter as a lesson well-learned. The chief rules of NASCAR cooking: Keep it delicious and simple.

More than 250,000 NASCAR fans are expected to flood Dover for this weekend's round of races. Over the next few days, in the speedway's recreational vehicle parking area, they will be stoking up grills for hearty meals of ribs, burgers and other tailgate favorites.

Batali, a huge NASCAR fan who calls Dover "one of my favorite tracks," includes many of his experiences there in his new cookbook "Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style" (Sporting News Books, $19.95). Batali also contributes a column and recipes on NASCAR.com.

Cozying up to the die-hard NASCAR crowd is certainly a smart career move for Batali. NASCAR is considered the country's fastest-growing spectator sport with an estimated fan base of 75 million. The sport now only trails the National Football League in television viewership, according to NASCAR.

While researching the book -- a collection of color photographs and recipes for everything from breakfast tortilla casserole to double chocolate "time trial" brownies -- Batali discovered that fans in Dover and at other NASCAR tracks around the country are much different that those who attend other sporting events.

Sure, you'll still find the gearheads, the good ol' boys and, uh, others.

"The toothless hillbillies? Oh, they're there," Batali says with his trademark candor.

But then the New York City resident quickly switches gears. "The passion of the fans and their intensity is unbelievable."

Over the years, NASCAR has evolved from the sport of the South to one that now attracts a wider and wealthier demographic. About 42 percent of fans earn $50,000 or more per year, according to NASCAR industry estimates. The crowd also spends more than $2 billion scooping up licensed products.

Unlike football tailgating, which is over in one day, NASCAR fans often camp out several days and sometimes up to a week before the main activities begin. At Dover, Batali met many fans who had never even sat in the grandstand, but instead stay by their campers and watch races on TV.

"NASCAR is a lot more complicated and more emotional than football tailgating. It's not that the food is superior, but you're there for a week, and it's more like a series of menus," Batali says. "People park in the same area year after year. They're sharing meals, and they don't just bring a box of burgers."

Jeff Cook is one of the those fans.

"I've taken my week's vacation to go and sit in the campground," says Cook, who owns the 2 Fat Guys American Grill restaurant and catering business in Hockessin with partner Tom Craft.

When he heads to Dover, Cook brings a pop-up camper that has a shower he built out of PVC pipe, a pallet and a tarp. He parks near friends in a U-shaped space and barbecues on a grill. "I've done everything from steaks to ribs to omelets in the morning. I've even fried a turkey. It's crazy," Cook says.

This year, the 2 Fat Guys are sponsoring the Key Motorsports No. 40 Chevrolet Silverado truck that races on Friday. The men also plan to cook ribs and burgers for the team.

"It's going to be a blast," Cook says.

Laid back, but serious about food, Batali has a laid-back style -- he favors shorts, T-shirts and bright orange clogs with colorful socks -- but his appreciation for fine foods is well-documented.

Named the country's most outstanding chef in 2005 by the James Beard Foundation, Batali regularly bebops with celebrities like R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe and hoity-toity foodies, chefs and the big spenders who down gallons of expensive wines and cutting-edge cuisine offered at his six stylish New York restaurants.

In September 2004, at the invitation of friends, Batali came to the MBNA America 400 at Dover International Speedway. During his stay, he had an epiphany.

Batali strolled the 140,000-seat grandstands and got excited watching drivers blister around the track's famed one-mile concrete oval known as the Monster Mile. But the chef's blood really began to pump when he walked among the 3,500 or so RVs parked in the campgrounds.

The party was rollicking and Batali, an admitted adrenaline junkie, was hooked on life in the fast lane.

"It's like Woodstock, Lollapalooza and the Iowa State Fair all rolled in one," he says. "What surprised me the most was that you would think that the Food Network crowd and the NASCAR crowd were on different planets. But guess what? They're on the same planet."

Between the trailers and RVs, he found people using cast iron skillets to fry crab cakes, among other dishes.

"I'd never thought crab cakes and NASCAR. But [the fans] are obsessive about food, and they are obsessive about regional cooking. And I fell in love with it."

Never one to leave a party early, Batali stayed in Delaware for three days.

George Fiorile, vice president and general manager of Dover Downs Hotel and Conference Center, says he can't share too many details of the weekend.

"What happens in Dover stays in Dover," he joked, but Fiorile will say that Batali "had a great time when he was here."

"It was interesting to see how he resonated with the NASCAR crowd. People were giving him high fives; they all recognized him. He had on his orange clogs, and it was hard to miss him."

Batali says that each NASCAR race track has its own culinary "flair." For instance, fans at the Lowe's Motor Speedway pride themselves on their Carolina barbecue. Chicago hot dogs are plentiful at Chicagoland Speedway. At Kansas Speedway, it's easy to find Kansas City-style beef ribs.

So, what's the "flair" in Dover?

"Budweiser beer," Fiorile jokes. "No, we see everything from pot roasts to your traditional burgers." Fiorile, who spent much of his time with Batali, remembers one tailgater barbecuing a round of beef wrapped in aluminum foil that he flavored with beer.

"It wasn't bad. It was actually good."

Batali enjoyed discovering the creativity and ingenuity of tailgaters. Another man he met in Dover showed off a prime rib of beef that he was roasting on a well-seasoned grill that had one of its legs propped up with a 2-by-4.

The superstar chef, known to TV fans as Molto Mario, says he wanted to be at the Dover races this weekend, but he had a scheduling conflict.

Yet his days at NASCAR are far from over. Batali plans on renting an RV to take his two sons Leo and Benno and wife Susi Cahn to an upcoming race.

"My wife and kids aren't going to know what hit them," he says, laughing.