A few years ago, I told my wife that I didn’t want any other “things” for my birthday. I wanted experiences. Since then, I’ve done some pretty cool stuff, like going to my first international soccer game at Copa America in Orlando. When I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my birthday a race popped into my mind. My wife and I have loved F1 racing for years, but F1 is ridiculously expensive. So, I thought of NASCAR.

My parents recently moved to Birmingham less than an hour from Talladega. So, for my birthday, I decided to attend my first NASCAR race at the pinnacle of motorsports, Talladega Speedway.

We thought that getting there was going to be difficult. But, despite the traffic, we were parked right outside the entrance to the speedway within 30 minutes. We entered the stadium, and it was instantly incredible. We were extremely close to the track, just four rows up, and had a perfect view of pit road. My favorite thing about racing is tire strategy and watching the pit crews. Watching these guys change four tires, filling up the gas tank, and making repairs in a matter of seconds is truly incredible to watch.

As we got closer to the start of the race I got more and more excited. Here’s a piece of advice if you ever attend a NASCAR race: Bring ear protection. We were in shock at how loud it was when the drivers simply started their cars.

When they zoomed past us at nearly 200 mph it was unbelievable. They were 8 seconds away from us by the time we felt the wind from the cars. The fastest lap was a little over 199 mph and you could fell every bit of the speed. You could feel the sound in your chest and, in 188 laps, the sight of cars flying past you never got old.

We saw out first crash on in the first stage of the race when Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski got door-to-door near the pits and took out Ryan Blaney. Blaney slid through the grass and stopped right in front of us. It was really cool to watch him get his car restarted and eventually get pushed back onto the track. However, he had to go back to the garage and eventually was out due to damage.

The second big crash of the race happened on the back straight away and, unfortunately, took out my favorite driver Christopher Bell.

The rest of the race was surprisingly clean, which is a shock for a superspeedway like Talladega. One fan that was sitting next to us commented that he had never seen a Talladega race without a crach in the last two laps.

One of the wildest things about NASCAR is how close the drivers get to each other. They are flying around this track and nearly 200 mph and at times they were inches away from each other and even bumping against one another.

Austin Cindric ended up winning with a great pit strategy that put him in front in the last 15 laps. It was neck-and-neck between Cindric and Ryan Preece coming around the final corner and Cindric edged out Preece by 0.056 seconds.

It was so cool to watch Cindric burn out at the finish line and stand on top of his car in celebration. The exhilaration of the race, the intensity of the competition and the sheer speed and sound of it all made Talladega a top five experience of my life. It was definitely the best way to spend my birthday, and we will be back at another race.