I Spent 3 Days Inside a British Party for the USA

It’s a strangely chilly Friday in June, and I’m sitting on a lawn chair crammed in the back of a panel van, headed for a massive American festival on the British Isles. American Speedfest 11 promises two days of fast cars, loud engines, country music, barbeque, monster trucks, and even a mock county fair. Apparently, 50,000 people are coming from across England to steep themselves in all things American—or, at least, their best facsimile of my country’s culture.

I’m with my dad, who’s racing in the event, and the sun is just coming out from an overcast sky when we arrive at Brands Hatch racetrack. I think it bodes well that the landscape resembles that of New Jersey or Connecticut, and that every flagpole in sight is flying the Stars and Stripes. But it could just be that my sense of place is all scrambled, given that I’ve arrived like a hostage in the back of a windowless van.

Before I can even get my bearings, someone hits the ignition on a 1969 electric blue C3 Corvette. (You know the one. The car you think of when you think Corvette.) Eight cylinders of fire-breathing raw power come to life. It’s all muscle and sinew—smoking, roaring, and spitting. There are no mufflers to temper the Chevy big block V8 under the hood, and I can feel the sound in my chest and through my boots on the pavement.

The car is undeniably American. But I’ve been a bit down lately on what that is. I’m a journalist, and writing about hunting and fishing—center-mass American subjects for middle-of-the-country folks—has taken me to every state except for three. I have nothing against the people I’ve met in America’s biggest cities and smallest towns. But I think I’d be in good company when I say living in the USA right now feels like riding in a car that’s about to crash. When I speak with people from rural areas, they’re often suspicious of those from cities, and the feeling is mutual. The messages on roadside political signs are angrier than before. Most people seem to think the only answer to the big problems ahead of us is to destroy the other side rather than work together to figure things out. It feels like we’ve lost a sense of unified vision.

I’m technically here for my dad, who’s racing in the festival, but that race is just for fun. My side quest is to find out what Brits think America is all about and by co-opting their perspective, I wanted to try to understand what they see in America. What is American culture, exactly? Would I really miss it if it were gone?

I’ve got two more days to find out.

Bernie Chodosh recently fell 11 feet off of a roof and is rocking a bright white plaster cast on his arm to prove it. But that doesn’t stop the 70-year-old from moving, inspecting, and prepping the four race cars that he and his sons have brought to race at Brands Hatch today. “Do you find that if you don’t do something yourself, it doesn’t get done right?” he asks me rhetorically in an East London Cockney accent while checking the tire pressure on a black 1950s Corvette. He’s annoyed because the 10-inch rims that one of his sons put on the front of the car were supposed to be on the back.

Chodosh runs a racing car club called Bernie’s V8s and Historic Outlaws with his two sons Simeon and Adam. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the country, and it focuses on American muscle cars and English cars with big, loud V8 engines.

The first V8 was built in 1904 by the French, but many would argue it reached its height under the hoods of American muscle cars and hotrods. We’ve bored the cylinders out on them, supercharged them, and just generally tried to turn as much power out of them as possible. This artform—and I would argue that it is an artform—reached its peak in the muscle car era of the 1960s and ‘70s. The Camaros, Mustangs, Corvettes, and other sports cars coming out of Detroit back then matched those powerful engines with loud styling and vibrant colors.

That’s also when Chodosh first encountered a muscle car. “I went to California in ‘66,” he tells me while kneeling next to a race car wheel, balancing a torque wrench on his cast and turning the handle on it with his free hand. “My uncle sponsored a drag racer, and we went to the races on Sunday. That was it. I knew my destiny.”

He was 13 years old, and when he got home, he started reading hotrod magazines. That’s where he found drag racers in the UK. And four years later, he tried building his first car. Many of the cars at the time were lightweight British cars retrofitted with American V8 engines. But there were some American cars, too. Soldiers stationed in the UK had been allowed to bring them over free of charge. “What would happen was, they’d drive around in a ‘55 Chevy and someone would ask them how they could get one of those cars,” Chodosh recalls. “Then the American would just sell it for a profit and import another.”

British veterans returning from the war had training, working knowledge of engines, and money in their pockets to buy car parts. The speed and freedom of fast cars—along with the camaraderie of racing—was also a relief from the traumas they’d experienced during the war and a distraction from the difficult job of assimilating back into civilian life. “All these guys were coming back after the war and they needed something to fulfill their lives,” as Chodosh puts it.

Regardless of how they got there, the vintage race cars make me feel right at home walking the paddock, and as I start to catch a glimpse of the greater festival, I notice more modern American pickup trucks, 4x4s, and sportscars all over the place. There are moments when I’m abroad that I feel transplanted back to the US, like when I hear an American voice on a crowded foreign street. But this is altogether different. The cars aren’t always outrageous examples of American cars, but rather the regular cars I see on the road at home. Combined with the flags and American music over the loudspeakers, it feels like I’m walking through an AI rendering of the USA.

At the end of the paddock is an entrance gate to an area for spectators to stand and watch. But when I get there, everyone’s on the move. John Denver’s “Take me Home, Country Roads” is playing on a tinny loudspeaker, and the crowd has the vibe of a group of pilgrims heading to some as-of-yet unknown destination. I join the crowd and head onto the track, where EuroNASCAR, a series based on American NASCAR has come to town, is holding what’s called a grid walk. It’s basically a meet-and-greet with drivers.

I step over the finish line and see women in skin-tight outfits holding American Speedfest 11 signs. There are European drivers in tailored racing suits signing autographs next to cars that look like they should be driven by a guy with a Southern accent. And in fact, only two of the drivers are actually from the US. After the grid walk, I make my way to the paddock where Chodosh and his crew are. But I’m stopped short when I hear the beginning of the American National Anthem.

American flags wave overhead, but when I look over the crowd around me, hats are still on and people are seated, talking amongst themselves. It could be that “the perilous fight” is a bit of a sore subject. But it’s more likely that they don’t need to stand and show respect, because this isn’t their song.

After that, things start feeling more familiar compared to races I’ve been to in the States. A hype man gets on the loudspeaker and says the magic words: Start your engines! I hear the grid of NASCARs’ collective low growl in the distance. This is followed by AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” which, as everyone knows, is the next song in the “Shit is About to Go Down” playlist.

The EuroNASCARS follow the pace car for one lap before the green flag. Just before the flag, they mass into a grid formation before all hammering the throttle in unison. I’ve been here before as a kid, on summer nights at small US dirt tracks, anticipating the 24-part corus of high-compression eight-cylinder engines firing off at the same time. It’s making the hair on my arms stand up.

I know most of the drivers are from Europe, AC/DC is from Australia, I’m standing on British dirt, and the race will probably be won by an Italian, but the only thing I can think at this moment is God bless America.

If it wasn’t for Prohibition, bootleggers would have never souped up cars to get away from revenue agents, they never would have raced those cars against each other, and NASCAR would have never been invented. If we used more trains than cars, like they do in Europe, we wouldn’t have brought the V8 engine to such lofty heights. Customizing muscle cars to go faster is American culture.

And that freedom of self expression is a big reason why Chososh started his club in the first place. “Other clubs have too many regulations,” he says. “Our only rules are, no slicks [or specialized racing tires], no wings [to help generate downforce], and no whiners and moaners.” To Chodosh, America is all about the cars, which are more than just machines to get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B.’ They’re representations of their owner and personal totems to their ideals.

“Take this guy for example,” he says, gesturing to a 1960s Corvette coming off of a trailer. “He’s done all of the work himself. He’s sprayed the car with a rattle can, nothing fits, but he’s done it all at home in a small one-car garage. I say good luck to him—at least he’s out here doing it.”

Jon Scaife didn’t grow up in one of the US’s barbeque centers, but he’s not using that as an excuse.

The 54-year-old expat is one of 10 contestants in a line of white easy-up tents with makeshift field kitchens and an array of meat smoking devices. This is a bit different than how a similar competition would work in the States, where I’ve heard of some pretty outlandish tow-behind smokers. Most of the teams including Scaife’s are manning over-the-counter equipment rather than designer rigs.

Scaife hasn’t lived in the US for about 21 years. He moved to northern England shortly after marrying his wife, a Brit. “I miss the food a lot,” he says in an accent that’s not quite British, but not quite American. First he mastered American-style pancakes, but it wasn’t long before he was in search of more ambitious projects. At the time, Scaife was working for the UK branch of Weber Grills, and the company asked him to start a barbeque team. He won a round during his first-ever competition and kept going even after he left the company.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to try any of Scaife’s food. It looks delicious, but it’s all for the judges. But there is a barbeque stand open to the public nearby. I walk past monster trucks doing burnouts and a row of candy-colored Ford Mustang convertibles, toward smoke rising from the repurposed water tank of a 1946 American fire truck. It’s only 10:30 am and the Texas Smoker Stand already has a line in front of it.

Everything has always been bigger in America. During the Revolution, the average American soldier stood three inches taller than his typical British adversary. It’s as if the vastness of the American landscape pushed things to grow and inspired people to create things to fill the void of open country. As an American, I take this for granted, so when I read the sign for a “heaping helping” of beef brisket, I assume I’m about to feel so full that I’m sick.

At the front of the line, it smells like barbecue, so I’m a little surprised when the teenager manning the booth sounds like he’s straight out of Oliver Twist. He asks me if I’d like a “portion of chips” to go with my meal. I decline. Just the straight, uncut brisket, please. He passes a clamshell container with a potato bun to another youngster who reaches into a trough of shredded meat with a pair of tongs. My knee jerk reaction is to stop him. Excuse me, I think of saying. I didn’t order pulled pork. But before I can open my mouth I notice one of the cooks in the background shredding a perfectly good, steaming hunk of beef brisket into oblivion. At the end, the meat looks as if it had gone 12 rounds with a grizzly bear. Too late to change my order, I try to keep an open mind.

Instead of getting a platter of smoked meat, I’m looking at a sandwich that would be right at home on the kids menu in a Texas BBQ joint. The brisket is on a brioche bun with a dash of barbecue sauce and some red coleslaw. The texture of the meat has been annihilated (no marbled globs of fat and no smoky bark) which is, well, different. You can’t knock them for trying, but for the first time in my life, I’m actually hungry after eating barbecue.

I head to the county fair to hunt down more American food. The fair puts me in the indulgent mood that only county fairs can do. I’m craving fried Oreos, fried pickles, funnel cake, or even a blooming onion. But there is none of that. Instead, I settle on a full English breakfast and a vanilla ice cream cone with a candy bar sticking out of it called a 99. I realize then that I only have a few hours left to experience as much America as possible before catching my dad’s race and leaving. So I decide to catch a ride on a monster truck before taking one last walk through the festival.

The truck is a heavily modified Chevrolet Silverado that’s been jacked up to the sky for driving over other cars and taking on big jumps. But there are no cars to drive over and crush or ramps to send us skyward at the “Ride a Monster Truck” experience. Basically, this “wild ride” takes place in an empty parking lot where a truck called Slingshot will drive and spin, taking riders back and forth before dropping them off where they started. About eight other people and I each pay 10 pounds apiece for a seat in the bed of the truck. We all sit, strapped in with lap belts facing each other like paratroopers in an airplane.

The truck lurches us all forward fast, then right before we run out of parking lot, it banks hard into a turn, casting everyone sideways with centripetal force. We coast around the parking lot, spinning and taking off again. Across from me there’s a boy who looks to be about six years old. He can’t contain himself, and I realize that I’m smiling and laughing just as much as him. It reminds me of my grandfather driving me around on any one of the fast vehicles he had when I was a kid. There’s something about the speed and being just a bit out of control that will make anyone smile. But the ride only lasts about 120 seconds before we’re ushered off of the truck so another group can get on.

I stumble through the festival in a bit of a daze, hearing the same songs by Chuck Berry, Elvis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen on repeat. The National Anthem is playing for the fifth time. The crowd is massive and the British and American food is clashing in my stomach, 1776-style.

I feel sick from the food, sick from the monster truck, and a little sick of all this Americana. But I do know that I’d miss more than just real barbeque if I’d been away from the US as long as Scaife. I haven’t been away for long, and the little differences like how they measure every shot of liquor before making a cocktail, or paying with coins instead of bills have me thinking of home. And the bits of news headlines about political turmoil I’ve seen on TVs and newsstands here makes me realize that the grass isn't always greener.

Standing behind rows and rows of classic cars, in a small grove of trees, Roger Cuckoo’s leaning against a perfect reproduction of a Miami Beach cop car. He looks the part, too, in his dark sunglasses, body cam, and fully-loaded duty belt. He’s convincing enough to make anyone who’s ever been pulled over a little nervous. In fact, as he shows off the back of the cruiser to a curious British family wearing NASCAR shirts, the only thing that tips me off to his cosplay is the fact that he’s got a banana in his gun holster.

“We aim to look the part,” the Cuckoo says to me.

As it turns out, the 60-something retired tradesman is a member of the South Coast Cop Cars, a group of obsessive car collectors who dress up like American cops and drive to shows throughout the UK all summer long. His 22-year-old partner, Dominic Murphy, met him at his place of actual employment—a hardware store. As he tells it, Murphy saw one of Cuckoo’s police cars and mentioned he had a California Highway Patrol uniform at home. The fake buddy-cops started attending car shows together from that point on.

Cuckoo, who lives in a small town in southern England called Uckfield, has always liked American cars. He once owned a C3 Corvette from the 1980s. But it was only after getting an opportunity to purchase a real American police car he joined this group. (This site suggests the going rate is around £12,000.) Most of these cars come through Pinewood, which is the movie studio in the South East that's served as the base for four Bond films and a myriad of other projects, he explains.

“They’re real cruisers,” Cuckoo adds. “To get one, it’s not so much what you know but who you know. Once they finish with them, idiots like us buy them.”

For Cuckoo, the idea of dressing up like the police is really about the cars. Murphy, the grandson of two UK police officers, seems to be more into the uniforms and how American policing actually works. “I spent hours if not days searching for the shirts that they wore,” Murphy says of the Miami Beach Police Department. After that, he reached out to a UK shirt company to produce replicas. He thinks they did an amazing job, but that a British police car could never match up to an American one. “You ask a British cop, and the first thing he’ll ask is why can’t we have cars like this?”

Several members of the South Coast Cop cars have been invited to the US, and Cuckoo would like to visit Miami himself one day, though he says the price tag is a bit out of reach. For his part, Murphy hasn’t been to the US either—though he does visit virtually. “I play a lot of games online including one roleplay game which follows the life of America,” he says. “Essentially it's a massive, very realistic game of cops and robbers.” He, of course, plays the role of a US police officer. And he feels that the game is so realistic he could graduate from any American police academy.

Unlike cops in the UK, those in America are heavily armed. To complete the look, the two “officers” show me slide-out drawers in the trunk of the cruiser with replica AR15 airsoft rifles in cut-out foam cubbies. After speaking with them, I make my way back to the racetrack but not before peaking through the windows of the other police cars on display. I see billy clubs, fake arrest forms, and tickets. It’s all lighthearted, but it brings to mind the parts of America that aren’t so fun, like images of civil unrest on the news, and traffic stops gone haywire.

I want America to just be about monster trucks, racecars, and barbeque, and like Murphy and Cuckoo, I want to just think about how cool police gear is instead of thinking about how it's meant to be used. It might be my upset stomach coupled with the general exhaustion of the show, but I’m suddenly confronted with thoughts of the violent, scary parts of America. Our economy is built on constant war and arms sales, while average people at home and abroad bear the brunt of that. America is an empire, and like all empires, ours may be on its way down. Our future—and with it, the world's future—is uncertain. Maybe the popularity of this festival and nostalgia for an idyllic past through cars and music is all an indication that the future is too scary to think about, so some of us are taking comfort in what feels safe.

After my run in with the fake police, I realize it’s almost time for what I came here to see: The Ford vs. Chevy race put on by Bernie’s V8s. I get to the pits just in time, and my dad fist bumps me through his race car window before taking off onto the track with the other vintage cars. The race starts just like the NASCAR race with one lap before the green. I find a place to watch on a series of “S” curves and I can almost see the whole track. At the green flag, the noise is deafening, and I watch as 25 multicolored cars stretch out over the track.

From the start, it’s completely different than the EuroNASCARS. It has all of the personality of a vintage car show with the excitement of a real race. My dad is driving a gold Corvette and fighting hard to overtake a red Camaro. Small battles are popping off across the field. Some cars spin out into the dirt. Toward the middle of the race, my dad passes the Camaro and takes 5th place. Chodosh’s son Simeon almost finishes in the top three but breaks a throttle cable and has to come off early.

After the race, Chodosh and his sons bring everyone together for an award ceremony back at their tent. They’ve brought gift baskets for the winners and constructed a podium for first, second, and third place. Moments ago, the drivers had all been fighting tooth and nail to win. They’re covered in sweat and exhausted. But they’re all here for each other. “We all help each other out, we all respect each other,” says Chodosh while addressing the group and handing out awards. “What we have here is an elite group of friends and family.”

I want this to be America. Everyone I’ve seen here this weekend may be dressing up like Americans, but they aren’t individualists. They think in terms of community. But then I realize it's the opposite attitude that sometimes makes America fun. With individualism comes renegade customizers and tinkerers. We modify and change things to suit our needs. At our best, we strike out on our own pushing to innovate and defy categories. In the process we create things like hip-hop and barbeque that people all over the world try to imitate—albeit sometimes poorly. Sometimes, there’s a dark side to being on your own, but if America didn’t have that kind of break-away spirit going for it, I’d probably never go back.

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