As a young tropical depression growing up in the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Hanna was always somewhat of a free spirit. Her major storm potential and destructive nature made her popular among the other tropical storms and Hanna was often quoted as saying she was going places. But, as Hanna’s projected path has her churning up the east coast and making landfall on Friday, the places she is going may offer more than she ever bargained for. Should Hanna follow the current National Weather Service projections, the storm is scheduled to make an unwelcome appearance at Saturday’s Chevy Rock and Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway (RIR). Weather experts agree that this congruence of NASCAR fans and gale force winds and rains will lead to a perfect storm, the likes of which our world has not experienced since the storm that caused the great floods navigated by biblical seaman and race fan Noah.

“I’ve seen two storm systems combine in my years but never two storms of this magnitude,” said noted meteorologist Hyman Wintergreen. “Should even a minor storm hit a category 5 drunk event like we’ll see Saturday night at Richmond, we could have a major weather event. The combination of a storm and 100,000 drunk rednecks has the potential to create major damage. When you get rain, you get mud, when you get NASCAR, you get rednecks, when you get rednecks and mud, you get muddin’. This is a very dangerous situation.”

Preparing for the battle, NASCAR fans have begun to gather supplies in order to ride out the storm. The Valero gas station and the Wal Mart in Ashland Virginia have both reported runs on tents, rain gear, beer, coolers, beer, charcoal, lighter fluid, beer and slip and slides.

“I ain’t gointa evacuate, I’m gointa celebrate,” said Henrico County resident Vic Skinkberg. “I hope it rains an ass ton. I could use a little water to mix with my Crown Royal!”

Track officials at RIR are urging fans to arrive early to tailgate so that spirits will not be dampened by the inevitable cancellation of the race on Saturday night.

“It ain’t often we get to have a Sunday afternoon race around these parts,” said RIR executive Buford Oxnut. “I don’t like to think of it as postponing the race as much as I like to think of it as an extra 16 hours of tailgating. NASCAR fans are highly adaptive and I’m sure they can find a thousand different ways to keep themselves occupied.”

Black Flagged Online resident tailgating expert Harley “Splash and Go” Coe recommends fans continue business as usual so that fans don’t let the storm win.

“All a little rain means to me is that my ponytail gets wet and I use a little more lighter fluid to keep my grill going,” remarked Splash and Go. “Rain don’t hurt me a bit. Rain makes me drunker.”

When asked he waited out last spring’s rain delay, Splash and Go revealed that after a certain point “you can’t get any wetter but you can sure as hell get a whole lot drunker.”