Why are we so attracted to famous people?

While walking through Graceland this week, the thought of what drew people to the estate of Elvis Presley popped into my head.

	Tim Packman

Then I started to wonder what makes fans flock to NASCAR drivers like they do. For that matter, let's toss in movie stars, politicians and your local news anchors, too.

Presley was, and is, an international star known by many around the world who passed away 25 years ago. For the past few weeks, a re-release of 30 of his No. 1 hits has been the No. 1 selling album, not only in America, but in 16 other countries, too.

Now that's what I call star power.

I'm an admitted "Elvis person" and will stop in my tracks if I see something about Elvis if it catches my eye, like during my 90-minute shopping spree at the Graceland gift shop after the tour.

When it comes to NASCAR, a guy in a cowboy hat and shades will make fans stop and watch. Elvis may have been the King of Rock 'n' roll, but Richard Petty is the King of stock car racing.

He did what Elvis did. He took something that already existed and made it bigger, better and more popular. Guys like Bobby Allison, David Pearson and others helped the popularity of racing along, too.

Dale Earnhardt came along and opened the eyes and ears of a whole new group of racing fans. Now, it seems his son Dale Jr. is doing the same thing.

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For me, next to Elvis, Evel Knievel was one of the coolest guys when I was a kid. Even now, I still look for his memorabilia regarding his career jumping cars and busses. (Anyone got a wind-up motorcycle they want to get rid of?)

Why do we "common folk" will flock to them and their houses and buy their T-shirts and such just to be around them? What makes us follow our fellow humans every move like that and want to be "near" them?

Is it because it makes us feel more important to be knowledgeable of a famous person's life? Do we have "one up" on our friends?

Fans of racing wait for hours around haulers and in autograph lines just to spend maybe three minutes to get an autograph and picture.

But the good part is, we will tell the story of that three-minute contact with a famous person at least 300 times. It doesn't make us bad -- it makes us human.

When we do leave this earth, no matter how many records we've recorded, championships we've won, movies we headline or millions we make -- it doesn't matter. We all take up the same size plot of earth when we pass on.

The famous ones just get more visitors than others.

Tim Packman's column appears every Saturday on NASCAR.com.

The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.