Where NASCAR fans in America’s biggest city find community

When it comes to where most people would think NASCAR fans would hang out to talk or watch racing together in clusters, they’d think of the Southeast and more rural or smaller suburban areas. They’d think of states like both Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and others.

But what about in urban areas outside the Southeast? Are there clusters of fans who come together to watch or talk about NASCAR? The answer is yes. New York City, which doesn’t have a NASCAR track within a two hour radius, has started to gain traction as a place for racing fans in the area to come together to watch races.

How the group began

A group that’s brought many New York City area NASCAR fans is the NYC & NJ NASCAR Club. Julian Ricci owns the group. He got it off the ground after purchasing a group on meetup.com that had been inactive for four years in Dec. 24. The group was formerly a NASCAR club for fans in New Jersey before the purchase.

He renamed it to include New York City as well. The name is convenient with the Hudson River separating Manhattan and Northern New Jersey. The watch parties began in 2025 starting for the Daytona 500. Throughout the season, the club rotated around various locations of bars and restaurants for fans to come watch together. They even held events in the off-season too such as a karting night and a holiday party.

Once 2026 came around, the club would have a big start to the year. For their 2026 Daytona 500 watch party, they got a record high 55 people to show up, which still stands to this day. The club on average gets approximately 15 to 20 race fans to show up each week, but the fans who show up are enthusiastic.

The club even organized a trip for members to Pocono Raceway for the Cup race this year.

Notable guests

Some notable names in the racing world have shown up too on occasion. ARCA Menards Series driver Brian Barbarow, who resides in New York City shows up from time to time whenever he can depending on his work schedule, being a Delta Air Lines pilot. Barbarow had just come back from Iowa Speedway after competing in the ARCA race to join in on the watch party for the Cup race.

Rutledge Wood, who hosted NASCAR Trackside on SPEED and also worked as a reporter for NASCAR on NBC’s broadcast pulled up to the Indianapolis watch party.

Adding Mamba’s NASCAR Sundays

There was one big change that came to the club in 2026 though. A new partnership with Mamba’s NASCAR Sundays. NASCAR personality Mamba Smith founded it to give race fans in the Charlotte area a chance to watch races together at bars and restaurants. The group there has attracted large crowds each week. With the success there, they wanted to add a second city for the watch parties. New York City was chosen, but with Mamba running the show in Charlotte, Jeff Anzulewicz was picked to run the New York City watch parties.

With the NYC & NJ NASCAR Club already existing, a decision was made to have one combined watch party each week. The first combined watch party was held for Talladega. The two have continued to partner up since. Ricci described how the partnership works efficiently in logistics. The existing club had the people, while NASCAR Sundays brought in more partners.

Ricci described the aspect of watch parties in New York City as “super special.” He didn’t even know New York City had this many NASCAR fans when he launched the club. He realized that there just needed to be a beacon for them all.

The role of social media and community

One of the things that has brought more traffic to the events is social media. Barbarow found out about the club from Instagram due to the algorithm combining his interest for racing and New York. Chase Miles, a first time attendee at Iowa said that Instagram’s algorithm also brought him to the club.

A three-time attendee named Devin, said he got bored from watching at home. He wanted to find a place where he could watch with people, and found the club. He also brings a car wrapped with a design resembling Clint Bowyer’s Jack Daniels No. 07 ride from the late 2000s. Wiley Kuhn is also a frequent attendee, and brings a website he developed showing pit stop data from races.

What’s next?

For the future, Ricci wants to simply build on the audience they have and grow attendance. He also would like to get more former NASCAR drivers to come, as well as bringing an actual stock car for display outside. Another goal is simply to get more attention from NASCAR themselves.

Another idea down the road for the club, is to also hold watch parties for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

For now though, the NYC & NJ NASCAR Club will continue to hold watch parties through the end of the season. Maybe in the future more urban areas in America will want to also give residents a chance to watch races together. NASCAR races in large markets such as Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco for example. Some residents have only one weekend to watch a race in person, why not give them a chance year round together?