About six months ago, I relocated from Kansas City, Missouri, to Springfield, Missouri. I was aware that there would be some cultural differences moving from the second most populous city in the state to the third. But I was by no means ready for the myriad cultural differences I was about to confront. I have been assaulted by an over-abundance of church-goers; crazy, backwoods hillbillies who give the rest of the great state of Missouri a bad name; Fans of Wrasslin’; and all of the other things that make this area the Reddest part of our Red State.

But, the one thing that I absolutely cannot stand is this:

These people watch too much NASCAR on Sunday after church.

I worked for five years in bars in Kansas City. I was often the Sunday morning bartender. Nothing would infuriate me more than the family of four, with forty teeth to share amongst themselves, who would come in on a Sunday afternoon, while everyone else in the bar was busy watching football (the American kind, not the other kind,) and demand to see watch “The Race.”

I would politely tell them that we were watching football, and if they wanted to watch the race, they would have to put their Jeff Gordon Hats back on, get in their pickup and drive to another bar.

This was the rule in Kansas City. Now, it would seem that I am the exception. When I walk into a bar on Sunday afternoon, proudly displaying a Kansas City Chiefs jersey, and politely ask the bartender if I could possibly get one television turned to the American Football Game on CBS, the Merle Haggard song on the juke box scratches to a halt, every head in the bar swivels around to look at me over the shoulder of it’s owner’s officially licensed NASCAR crew suit. And I am asked to politely find another establishment for my Sunday afternoon activities.

It’s not that I can’t watch my game at the local bar, because of surplus of rednecks in full NASCAR regalia that upsets me, it’s the fact that they believe, erroneously, that they too can drive just like their on-track heroes.

I believe that a combination of too much NASCAR and Wrasslin’ on TV has led to a complete loss of reality for most drivers in the Springfield area. A dumbing down has occurred here. They have forgotten the Sacred Redneck Oath: “When we’re fake Wrasslin’, we won’t really hit each other. When we’re driving in a race, it’s ok for us to tailgate, not use turn signals and to drive really fast. Oh, and left turns only, I don’t like going right.”

You see, NASCAR fans have forgotten that the drivers are all in on it. They’ve even got safety equipment, because what they are doing is “extremely dangerous.”

And yet these same NASCAR fans drive EVERYWHERE as if they too were on the track at Talladega Speedway, having said the Sacred Redneck Oath, and have been strapped into a “stock car” to race with 40 other rednecks who have all take the Sacred Redneck Oath.

These crazy people are under the impression that they must draft off of each other (and me) to get anywhere. I routinely cannot see the license plate of the person tailgating me at seventy miles per hour as I travel down the James River Freeway.

I can, almost always handle that. But, after last weekend’s ‘Ice Storm of the Century,’ I was driving home one afternoon, on still slick streets, at dusk. Seventy five percent of the city was without electricity, stop lights all over town were not functioning. And yet everyone on the road, with the exception of yours truly, continued to drive as if they have taken the Oath. Speed limit’s 50 MPH? They’ll go 80. Exit coming up in a quarter of a mile, no problem, They’ll dart across three lanes without signaling. Hell, they see Dale Jr. do it all the time on the TV. He makes it look easy.

They have forgotten that, like Wrasslin’, NASCAR is, essentially, fake. I’m not implying that the drivers and the owners all conspire to select the winners of each race. I’m simply stating that everyone on that track is abiding by the same rules. And, here’s the kicker, they’re all doing it with cars that are so much safer for their driver, and on tracks which make it (relatively) safe for the other drivers.

All I’m asking, Greater Springfield Area, is that you slow down, a little. Maybe get over into the turning lane before your exit appears. After all, you’ve lived here all your life, you should know where the exit is.