Md. couple go karting with Greens for charity

CONCORD, N.C. -- Used to be, one of the reasons touted for the popularity of NASCAR was the accessibility of its drivers. Used to be, fans could come down to the pits after a race and mingle with drivers, crewmen and car owners.

Sure, fans still have some access to drivers, but most of the time, drivers head to the solitude of their million-dollar motorcoaches after a race, while fans have to fight hundreds of thousands of other fans to get home.

ALSO  •  Greens set to host annual charity golf outing

Times have changed, for sure. But there are some drivers who still mingle with fans, who don't act like superstars, who are, well, regular people.

Grady and Deanna Romblad got to find out about that first-hand recently. The couple posted the winning bid for an online auction hosted by this site and eBay for a chance to spend a day with Jeff and Mark Green and their wives.

And, yes, it cost $800 for the Rombalds to "Go Green," but that money goes directly to the Green Foundation, the drivers' charity organization. For Romblad, it was money well spent.

Grady and Deanna drove eight hours from Maryland -- after dropping off their two kids, Connor and Hannah, with grandparents -- to Concord to meet and greet Jeff and Michelle Green and Mark and Cathy Green.

Oh, and did we mention they got a chance to race Jeff and Mark? The first stop on the Go Green day was the NASCAR SpeedPark at Concord Mills Mall. The Romblads and the Greens interacted like old friends while at the park, talking about hunting and guns and kids driving race cars.

Grady used to race a WKA go-kart, and now his son, Connor, wants to do the same. Mark Green's son, Tyler, races Bandeleros at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

That made me wonder what kind of race we'd have. Would I be left in the dust?

I skipped the first race to take a few pictures, but that was fine. Jeff and Mark didn't really race as much as goof off, waiting for Deanna at every turn, bumping her and turning her sideways. They tried to do the same to Grady, but he was a little too tough for them.

Just wait until they race me, I thought.

	Deanna Romblad has some fun on the track. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

Waiting for the tracks to be dried -- it had rained the night before -- the conversation turned to Nextel. Grady is a technical support engineer for cellular switching for that company, and Nextel's involvement is one of the reasons Grady started watching NASCAR again.

Like a lot of fans, Grady lost interest after Dale Earnhardt died.

"It was a hard time for the sport as a whole," Romblad said.

A lot of things burned him out, like the way safety pioneer Bill Simpson was treated, the backlash Sterling Marlin received.

But when Nextel came back, he came back. And he found not much had really changed. When he left, Junior was running well, gunning for rookie-of-the-year. When he came back, Junior was running well, gunning for the Nextel Cup championship.

And he discovered a lot of good people are still in the sport.

"I really forgot how good a sport it was," Romblad said. "I forgot how many good people there are out there like the Greens. It's still a fans sport."

	Time for "stock car" racing. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

What Romblad didn't know was that the Greens wanted his services, too. Seems Michelle Green is rough on cell phones, tossing them in her purse before lowering the antenna. Jeff wanted Grady to have a look before he headed back to Maryland.

Grady happily obliged.

Next up was the "slick track," which can best be described as a dirt track on concrete. The karts are designed to slide around, which can make for a lot of fun for novice and professional. Never mind the "No Bumping" sign on the back of the karts. The Greens didn't seem to, anyway.

After that was the big track, the mini-superspeedway, if you will. It's a bigger track, and you have to wear a helmet and five-point seat belts to drive one of those karts.

The karts had been sitting in a puddle of water overnight, so we needed two pace laps to make sure everything was dry. Mark Green started on the pole, with Lee Montgomery on the outside. I was already plotting strategy, deciding to let Mark get the lead and fall into third behind Jeff at the green flag.

I noticed that a small crowd had started to gather as word spread that the Greens were racing. Oh, great, embarrassment in front of dozens of people.

But, alas, my plan worked. Mark and Jeff got the lead, but it seems I had the faster kart. Before you know it, I had slipped into the lead. And when I saw, slip, I mean it literally. The karts were fast, and you couldn't lead-foot it all the way around that place.

Once I got out front, I kept expecting someone to come up and nudge me from behind, with a smiling Green waving as he went past. It never happened.

I eventually caught up to Deanna, who didn't seem to have as fast a kart as I did. Good, I thought, someone to race with.

But a strange thing happened on my way to my glorious victory. The inside of Turn 4 was quite slippery, and as I went inside to pass, I spun out.

Crap.

	Lee Montgomery takes a turn behind the wheel. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

I found out later that I had a huge lead and had no reason to try to hurry past Deanna. My girlfriend said she heard some people talking about who was in the race, and someone asked, "Who is in the No. 64?"

That would be my boyfriend, Laura thought proudly. Of course, that was until I looped it.

We ran a caution lap, and I settled in fourth. Grady and Jeff battled side-by-side to the finish, with Grady inching out the victory. Mark tried to make it three-wide off Turn 4, but somehow he lost control of his kart. OK, I got into him, but who's counting?

Boy, was that fun. We talked and talked about it, and even Jeff said it was slippery in Turn 4.

"Yeah, I noticed," I said sarcastically. But it was all in good fun.

The go-kart trip was only the beginning for the Romblads. Next was lunch at the Speedway Club at the track, followed by a Richard Petty Driving Experience. The next day, the Romblads were treated to a tour of several race shops with Adventures in Motorsports.

Jeff picked up the lunch tab, but we all wondered if there was an extra charge on the bill. Seems that after munching on some food, Jeff leaned back in his chair to take it easy. But the back of the chair snapped right off.

"They put a chair on the bill?" Mark joked.

If they had, my guess is the Romblads would have gladly paid it. Getting closer to the sport they love is priceless.

You can count them as fans again, and Grady is proud to say so. And you can bet they'll be pulling for the Green brothers, too.

"It's competitive on the track, but once you get off the track, it's like one big family," Romblad said. "That's something I really do like about it, and I'm glad to be coming back to it."