MEXICO CITY — For years, Oscar Sanchez has jogged around Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and imagined what it would be like to see NASCAR Cup Series cars on his home track.
The circuit is open during weekdays to runners and cyclists, and Sanchez, a 38-year-old auditor and nearby resident, often takes advantage of its public access. So when he stood in the grandstands on Friday for the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series practice session and watched the Cup cars zoom around the same track, it was an emotional moment.
“The roar of the engines for the practice was … Oh!” Sanchez said Saturday amid the hum of the bustling fan midway. “I closed my eyes and just smelled it.”
He imitated the experience, shutting his eyelids and waving a savory scent toward his nose like a chef hovering over a freshly prepared dish. Then Sanchez’s eyes flashed open again.
“It’s really a dream come true,” he said.
Much of the focus for NASCAR’s inaugural Cup Series race in Mexico City (airing Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) — its first points race outside the United States since 1958 — has been the search for new fans. International expansion has long been coveted by NASCAR executives, who believe they have an opportunity to grow their non-American audience as other major sports leagues have.
But a smaller group of longtime Mexican NASCAR fans, who had never seen Cup Series cars in person until this weekend, didn’t need to be convinced. As diehards getting their first real-life taste of NASCAR’s top series, it’s been sensory overload.
“It was so loud,” said Mauricio Sanchez, a 25-year-old photographer from the Cancún area (and no relation to Oscar). “Our local races are not that loud, even in a pack. Kyle Larson was the first car to go out (in practice), and he just flies by, and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ …
“The first impression, I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I will never be able to repeat that moment, the first time you hear the Next Gen driving full throttle.”
Mauricio first watched a NASCAR race at age four, according to his parents, and gravitated toward Kyle Busch, who was a teenager at the time. More than two decades later, Busch is now a 40-year-old veteran who still races in NASCAR.
Mauricio was wowed to see Busch’s No. 8 car go around the track (Busch qualified 11th for Sunday’s race) in person and proudly wore the gear of a driver he praised for having “a personality with no filter.”
“Watching him driving is just awesome,” Mauricio said. “We have a lot of fans who are new to the sport, but having this opportunity to watch something I’ve loved only on TV is just impressive.”
“Having this opportunity to watch something I’ve loved only on TV is just impressive,” fan Mauricio Sanchez said of NASCAR’s return to Mexico City. (Jeff Gluck / The Athletic)
Americans get 35 points races plus two exhibition races in their country this year, and the oversaturation can lead to some malaise among the fan base. But for those seeing Cup cars for the first time, the freshness and enthusiasm are high.
For example, while some traditional fans have criticized NASCAR’s Next Gen car, Mauricio said it “looks incredible” and is “better in person.”
Oscar Sanchez was drawn to NASCAR for its thrilling oval racing — not road courses like Mexico City (which is the track Formula One uses on its annual visits here). But he’ll take what he can get for a first Cup experience, he said.
“I would prefer Daytona or Talladega, but this is amazing,” he said.
Oscar first learned about NASCAR through games on the original PlayStation in 2000. He felt connected to the sponsor brands at the time and liked that stock cars looked like real cars on the street.
In 2002, when he got cable TV, he came across NASCAR races and realized he recognized real-life tracks like Daytona and Charlotte from the games he played. He’s been a fan ever since, changing his rooting interests from Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Chase Elliott (the son of Bill Elliott, whom Oscar associates with his early days as a fan).
“You can see drama, you can see many cars, you can see crashes,” Oscar said of NASCAR’s appeal. “It’s more connected to the people than Formula One, I think.”
Indeed, most Mexican race fans are more drawn to open-wheel racing (Formula One and IndyCar) instead of stock cars. But some find NASCAR more appealing.
Mexico City resident Andres Lambreton, 27, became a NASCAR fan by accident. He watched NFL games on Sundays with his father (a huge Dallas Cowboys fan), and the channel would often get turned to golf when the football game was over. But Lambreton was bored by golf, so he once changed the channel to a same-day replay of a NASCAR race at Texas.
Now-retired Martin Truex Jr. was leading that mid-2010s race at the time, Lambreton recalled, so the youngster decided Truex was his new favorite driver. Watching NASCAR suddenly became a regular tradition for father and son.
“NASCAR is an awesome product and an awesome race series, but it’s hard to give it a chance if you haven’t consumed it or been close to it,” Lambreton said. “So this is a massive opportunity for NASCAR and for motorsports fans from both countries to become closer.”
On Saturday, Daniel Suárez won NASCAR’s Xfinity Series race in his home country. “I cried as hard as a situation like this permits,” one fan said. (James Gilbert / Getty Images)
But Lambreton’s passion went to another level when Mexico native Daniel Suárez began his stock car career.
Lambreton can rattle off the key moments from 2016, when Suárez won his first three Xfinity Series races and the series championship. He remembers crying when Suárez won the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to clinch the title, and his interest in racing led to a job doing social media for a sports website. And the emotion returned later Saturday when Suárez won the first Xfinity Series race in Mexico City in 17 years.
“I cried as hard as a situation like this permits,” he said via text message.
Each of the longtime fans said they hoped Sunday’s race would be enjoyable or that their favorite driver would do well. But Mauricio then caught himself, not wanting to sound too greedy.
“I’m living a dream,” he said, “and that’s all that matters today.”
(Top photo of fans reacting to Daniel Suárez’s win in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
