Loudon tailgates with turkeys Grill, fry and roast on NASCAR-style Thanksgiving day

LOUDON, N.H. – Enjoying mild temperatures and their own camaraderie, NASCAR fans built campfires and cooked turkeys in a parking lot at the New Hampshire International Speedway on Thanksgiving, the day before Friday’s Winston Cup race.

They threw horseshoes and baseballs Thursday afternoon in the 48-degree temperature and put up banners and flags of their favorite drivers and teams. Then they prepared for a feast Thursday night.

“We’ve got chili, and we’re roasting a turkey and deep-frying two more,” said Bill Romprey, 52, an auto mechanic from Laconia. “We’re having an awesome time. There’s nothing like it – Loudon in November.”

Joining Romprey was Bill Anderson, 48, a truck driver from Laconia who brought along his wife and children for Thanksgiving outside the racetrack.

“It’s kind of a unique thing,” Anderson said. “We’re doing it baby and we’re having a good time.”

The biggest difference from a typical race was the size of the crowd – hundreds of mobile homes, not thousands.

The last Winston Cup race of the season was rescheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, risky in such a northern climate, after it was postponed from Sept. 16 because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington five days earlier.

The hard-core fans were deep-frying turkeys in drums or using a rotisserie on a custom-made oil drum. Some were smoking them on grills, and others cooked them the usual way, in ovens in their mobile homes.

Several groups from throughout New Hampshire that met at the track every year were cooking four or five turkeys.

One couple had set up Christmas lights and a small trimmed Christmas tree.

Inside the track at the small restaurant, the speedway catered a turkey dinner for about 100 track staff and truck drivers who transport the race cars from track to track. Track owner Bob Bahre joined them.