For me, I got hooked in 1976 at the Sportsnationals in Bowling Green, KY.
I was within a day or so of turning 15 and the smell of burning rubber and racing fuel got me.
The sights of the fancy paint jobs and all that polished aluminum blew me away and the sounds from the open headers was still ringing in my ears that night when I laid down
My whole family went to the Beech Bend dragstrip that day, but I was the only one that got "the bug"
I dabbled in bracket racing until the age of 51 but I had always wanted to run Stock and Super Stock.
It took me 36 years before I could enter my first Stock Eliminator race