day at the races

For a member of the English upper classes, there is no doubt, no need to disambiguate. If you're going to the races, it's too see horses. Ascot might be more famous for millinery than equine delights these days, but the horses started it all, they are at the center of it, and they're the reason everyone dons the silly hats.

On the other side of the social gamut is greyhound racing, a low-cost alternative to the posh people's pleasure. It might be a simple idea, but it's hilarious to watch: Beautiful dogs – not always entirely sure of what's going on – chase a stuffed rabbit on a rail down a racetrack. In the stands, thousands follow the spectacle with a passion that's normally reserved for a Chelsea-ManU match, eat junk food galore and bet away their inheritance.

Yesterday afternoon, after a week in Dresden, I touched down at Heathrow and picked up a Fiesta in fashionable white. The brilliant little car was a sporty Zetec S model that rocked the road and impressed the kids at the drive-thru with squealing tires and mighty jumps forward at the lights. Fittingly enough, I was on the way to the races, though neither horses nor dogs were on my mind.

A family connection who works as a motorsports journalist had procured tickets for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters at Brands Hatch, complete with paddock access and Volkswagen hospitality. Clueless but excited, I drove to the gate on Saturday night, called my local contact and got picked up by a suit in a fat Touareg who ferried me to the party tent that wasn't quite heaving yet. It was just about seven and dinner was still on.

Enough time to sample all the delights later, tables were cleared from the area in front of the stage. Kids with pimples got enormous silverware for squeezing the most out of overclocked Sciroccos, and some old guys iPods for showing. Those guys were billed as motorsports legends, and they were the focus of the night, but before they could rock, legends of another kind were taking over the stage.

I forgot about the winners and the speeches as soon as The Upbeat Beatles took to their instruments. This unapologetic tribute band pushed accurate impersonation to the limits. Everyone can do stringy moptop wigs, but it takes a bit of guts to put the original logo on the drumkit – Sir Paul might personally chase after you for trademark infringement.

What had me completely transfixed, however, were the looks of the musicians. Old and podgy, they didn't make the least effort to emulate their heroes as they exist in everyone's mind's eye or memory. No, these guys looked exactly what the Beatles would look like had they continued their journey of uninhibited and mutually reinforced drug and alcohol excesses uninterrupted by death or assassination. I wasn't alone in my reaction to this kind of visual inverse time travel. Most of the audience must have been as mesmerized as I was, and the band's countless appeals for the first courageous couple to hit the dance floor went unanswered.

All changed when the legends of the racecar stepped up to lend their seasoned voices in support of the optical illusion on the stage. When an impromptu karaoke of Help! kicked off, I was swept aside by a surging crowd in a mad dash to the front. Elbows jostled but quickly found their way: stretched out and in the air. Dozens of cell phones and digicams were hovering above bopping heads to capture the occasion and preserve it for eternity, giving the performance the treatment it must have surely deserved. A glow of childlike joy lit every face.

I looked on with bafflement and suspicion. The four legends that had caused such a frenzy in the in-crowd didn't look much different from the four legends that had been working the instruments for a good twenty minutes before their luck changed. I blame it on my eyes, unfamiliar as they are with any sort of racing that's not done personally and self-propelled.

I returned to the track this morning to start my education in the arts of track-bound power and speed, but fell short of graduating. The roar of the DTM cars has be heard to be believed. My ears still ring, and that's all I can say.