Why is NASCAR getting COVID-19 sniffing dogs more than other places?
COVID-19 sniffing dogs are best served in essential workplaces
The two men exchanged glances at each other and then looked back at me to see if I was kidding.
“Are you serious right now?” the white guy asked.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” I responded, completely clueless that this was a rare request.
“You’d probably be the only black woman there,” the black guy responded.
“No, I wouldn’t,” I responded. “Wait … is that true?”
It turns out that my co-workers were right. At the time, I was a photo technician, and we were passing time waiting for negatives to come out of a processing machine. I have no idea what made me bring up my interest in NASCAR; I just said it off-handedly.
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I am intrigued by anything that goes fast. I only want to sit on the front row of roller coaster rides. I purposely asked parasailing experts to drop me into the ocean when I was in Honolulu because just watching the scene from 500 feet above water was painfully dull. I think riding bicycles is boring but fell in love with motorcycles the millisecond I rode on the back of one, and the driver sped through a small gap between two buses in the middle of Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. And my mother gave me the nickname “Leadfoot.” (Ironically, in 23 years of driving, I have never gotten a speeding ticket. Money does grow on trees, and I like to keep it in my pocket. Thank you!)
So it made absolute sense to me to want to attend a NASCAR event. I would watch the competitions all the time on TV. I never bothered to pay much attention to the drivers. I just wanted to see the cars. I’d turn the TV off as soon as they started interviewing drivers. What I did not know then was NASCAR fans are predominantly male and the viewership is mainly white. According to Statista, in 2016–2017, white viewers accounted for a 91 percent share of NASCAR’s total viewers in the United States. In the minority or not, I like what I like.
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In addition to fast cars, I especially enjoyed that former President Donald Trump had a bone to pick with them for banning the Confederate flag. But the way NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was treated after he was told — by a white guy, no less — about the noose-shaped rope by his garage left a sour taste in my mouth. Still, the way the hip-hop community stepped up to defend that NASCAR driver wasn’t half bad either.
While I have issues with some of the politics and news surrounding the organization, years later, I still enjoy watching the races. It’s fun to see them navigate the cars and to see how powerful they are zooming around the track. I was even intrigued to see Clifford “T.I.” Harris get behind the wheel of a race car and see how he took to it.
here’s where I have a bone to pick with NASCAR, and it’s nothing to do with the cars or flags. There’s a newer connection I love far more than fast cars: dogs.
How do dogs, fast cars and COVID-19 connect?
WFAE reports that a Black Labrador Retriever named Dixie has shown up on the scene at the Sunday’s Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in mid-March. She’s playing a strange game of Fetch. She sniffs attendees hands for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds, even giving a few licks to those who may fluff her scalp. But she’s not the kind of dog who is looking for affection. In a bright orange collar, she’s trained to sniff for coronavirus.
When she smells the scent, she will either sit down or alert an official when she detects coronavirus on that person. She’s one of three COVID-19 sniffing dogs that was brought out to screen 1,000 NASCAR pit crew members and staff at the Atlanta race. The people who the dog identifies as having COVID-19 is then given a rapid swab test. In fact, the dogs have correctly identified masks or items of clothing with a positive COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test somewhere between 98% to 99% of the time.