TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Four boys, each no older than 11 years old, made their way down a dirt road amid row after row of parked recreational vehicles.

Their eyes were wide with excitement and their giggles filled the air. Wearing shorts and T-shirts, they could have been on their way to hook up with some buddies to play tag. Perhaps they were already on some secret mission their imaginative minds had conjured up.

	The infield at Talladega Superspeedway is a place where a businessman by day can let his grass skirt down before the big race.

It wasn't until a beautiful woman walked nearby that the reason for their giddiness was revealed.

"Show us your t----!" they screamed in high-pitched unison.

Welcome to the infield at Talladega Superspeedway, the largest race track on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series circuit and, for a handful of days and nights no less than twice each year, home to both the rowdiest and friendliest infield residents in racing.

Race fans, numbering in the tens of thousands, travel from all ends of the nation and converge upon this huge plot of land just 40 miles east of Birmingham, 110 miles west of Atlanta but in another world.

For three nights, they become neighbors and some become friends. For three nights, some become problems and a handful become inmates. It is at once the most brilliant and most pathetic sight in motorsports.

"I absolutely love it," said Dan Sanders, a Columbus, Ind., native who has made himself at home in the Talladega infield for every Winston Cup race there since 1999. "We come here every year and it's the same: great people and a lot of fun."

The gate keepers for one of the motor coach communities tell residents to "Holler if you need us." In a section near the track's Turn 4, a neighborly family helps some rookie campers hook up the hose from their RV to the city water receptacle. In most areas a smile, a wave and a "howdy" are mandatory behavior when you come across anyone.

When an observant race fan noticed that a few young men were walking up and down a strip of RVs looking for somewhere, anywhere, to watch the big race, he did not hesitate to invite them up to his $1,500 vantage point. For free. He even offered them a beer.

Southern hospitality abounds in this make-shift Alabama town.

But these must be the day-time residents. Either that or these fine people undergo a transformation of the Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde sort.

Come night time, most of the residents have downed so many beers that they can barely see straight, let alone act chivalrous. Every 20 yards or so down each strip of road that winds through the infield stands another mob of cheering men, waving beaded necklaces and taking pictures of women who reveal various parts of their bodies.

And should a group huddle around a woman who chooses to keep her privates private, she is subjected to undeserved degradation. Folks who otherwise may be professionals back home are reduced in this primitive setting to chastising self-respecting women who choose not to expose themselves to the oglers.

As sad a sight as it is, it is a familiar ritual in the infield. What is it about the group mentality that can reduce a suit-and-tie member of society to belittling someone by throwing blatant insults at them?

	Much like Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, NASCAR fans trades strings of beads for a flash of a woman's skin.

"What do I do?" asked a middle-aged man with a box around his head and a rectangular opening around his eyes. On top of the box is a sign that reads "Free Mammograms."

"Computers," he confesses. "Computer engineer."

The boldness of the infield residents goes far beyond verbal insults, too. One year, as NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter tells it, the boys were so raucous that even the Alabama State Troopers were leary of entering the infield in an attempt to keep the peace. When word spread that a certain group of infield residents had weapons, the police instead chose to deputize NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation officials and let them try to quell the problem.

In areas just outside the infield, like the community across the track known as Pecan Grove, anarchy reigns as residents so removed from civilization abandon even the simplest rules of society. One year, after the hard, red Alabama clay was rendered soft by a stormy night, residents grabbed shovels and built a barricade at the entrance so nobody -- neither police nor ambulance -- could come in.

They are the type of people who end up spending time in the "Talladega Jail," a holding facility operated by county police and located outside Turn 3. This portable pokey, which looks more like a trailer at a construction site than holding cell, is often filled to capacity with people taken from the infield in the days before the race. Its reputation has gotten so bad that track officials and those who run the facility no longer allow media a peek inside.

"It's a touchy thing. They don't really want other people in there," track spokesperson Ken Patterson said. Officers who manned the joint would not comment for this article.

	"Guest relations office" is a fancy name for the hoosegow alongside Turn 3 at Talladega.

The trouble makers who end up in the jail aren't always harassing people or doing anything illegal. Sometimes, they are just having a little too much fun. During the spring race here, one group of men bought two RV spots. In one spot they parked their RV. In the other, they set up a stage and ran a pole down the center. "We provide the pole. You provide the show," the sign read. Dozens of women, and a few belligerent men, danced on stage that night.

On Saturday night, these very party-goers were back, this time with a simpler set up. They lost the pole and set up a DJ table to host a dance club. "Found a little bit of trouble last time," one of them said.

The range of refreshing friendliness to jaw-dropping lewdness in the Talladega infield boggles the mind. But on race day, the scene changes. The entire infield wakes up to the sound of the public address announcer introducing the day's event and an up-and-coming band that will perform in the hours leading up to it. The residents are asked to lower their flags -- be they flags of the Confederacy, their favorite race car driver or the Stars and Stripes. Everyone lowers them within minutes so as not to block the view for fellow infield residents trying to watch the race.

Instantly, courtesy has returned.

Many try to wash the filth of the previous night off of them in public showers which actually leave some dirtier going out than they were coming in. Others arise to fire up the grill and put some beer on ice. Soon, they'll be on top of an RV, watching the race and cheering their favorite drivers. The embarrassments of the past weekend behind them, these folks, for the most part, are back to acting civilized and neighborly.

	Race fans atop RVs parked in the infield watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. manuever his red Chevy toward the lead in Sunday's EA Sport 500.

A trucker who owns his own rig, Dan Sanders offers strangers to share the prime view atop his RV. He is full of stories, and some of the best pertain to the infield. But no matter how many times he might have seen the shocking behavior of some of his fellow residents, he comes back to hang out in the infield.

Although the 2.66-mile race track is too big to hear the roar of the motors until the cars come to the nearest turn, when the line of 43 cars come screaming through Turn 4, no more than 50 feet away, you quickly realize the real attraction of the infield.

The buzz these 3,400-pound rigs send through the body reverberate long after the race. There is no better place to watch the race than from one of these spots, among thousands of new-found closest friends screaming for whomever they call their favorite driver.

Sure, the infield is a scary place. But, in the end, it's one of those things that every race fan -- heck, anyone curious about this sub-culture -- should experience once.

If you're lucky enough to make it close to the action, though, it's likely you'll want to experience some part of it again.

Rupen Fofaria is a beat writer for The Raleigh News & Observer and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be contacted at rfofaria@nando.com.

Photos by Michael E. Palmer of the Tuscaloosa News for ESPN.com.