ATHENS, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Fans packed into Akins Ford Arena to catch an Athens Rock Lobsters win Saturday night and had a welcoming party of nine NASCAR drivers on the concourse.<\/p>\n
NASCAR Night brought Kyle Busch, Clayton Green, Ross Chastain, Carson Hocevar and others to Athens for a night at the track in the arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the South is primarily NASCAR (fans) and it has a lot of life in it still and events like this especially in Athens, Georgia really show that,\u201d Hocevar said.<\/p>\n
The drivers signed autographs and snapped photos with fans. The stars\u2019 presence might have helped bring a new fan or two to the Lobsters.<\/p>\n
Trent Jones is a University of Georgia student from Buford, who said his primary reason for coming to the games was to meet his favorite drivers Hocevar and Chastain.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing here and being able to see (the drivers) up close and personal was a lot cooler, so when I saw they were coming, I figured (I) might as well,\u201d Jones said. ” This might be my kind of gateway (into hockey). Get to see it and see how the team plays.”<\/p>\n
As for whether fans will see any of the drivers on the ice again anytime soon, the drivers say they will stick to the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey drop the puck and we\u2019ll be carted off,\u201d Chastain said. \u201cThey\u2019re sprinting on ice is what it looks like to me, so no not a chance. (We\u2019re) not strong enough, not tough enough for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NASCAR Cup Series begins Feb. 1 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the Cook Out Clash. The first race in Georgia will be at EchoPark Speedway for the Autotrader 400 on Feb. 22. <\/p>\n
The Rock Lobsters beat the Pee Dee IceCats, 6-5, on Saturday night. They\u2019ll play the Columbus River Dragons on Sunday before hitting the road to play the IceCats again in Florence, South Carolina, on Friday.<\/p>\n
Fans packed into Akins Ford Arena to catch an Athens Rock Lobsters win Saturday night and had a welcoming party of nine NASCAR drivers on the concourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 Fans packed into Akins Ford Arena to catch an Athens Rock Lobsters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[170338,18837,170343,56601,49,48,170340,170341,634,170344,170342,170339,170336,82,170337],"class_list":["post-404045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-anf","tag-athens","tag-athens-hockey","tag-atlanta-news-first","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-columbus-river-dragons","tag-icecats","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-sc","tag-pee-dee-icecats","tag-peedee-ice-cats","tag-rock-lobsters","tag-sports","tag-wanf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}