The Trades - Music Review: Toby Lightman, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)"

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ARTICLE

Music Review: Toby Lightman, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)"
by Paul Schultz
Published: March 10, 2008

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Release Date: February 29, 2008
Label: Nettwerk Music Group
Related Sites:
· Official Site

Grade: B+

Toby Lightman performs FOX Sports' original NASCAR theme song, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)."

Toby Lightman performs FOX Sports' original NASCAR theme song, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)."

It's "free curly fries" Monday since Matt Kenseth won NASCAR's Nationwide race this weekend in his Arby's-sponsored car, so I'm enjoying a piping-hot mess of seasoned potatoes as I reflect on all the excitement we've seen early into the professional stock car racing schedule. It all started with Ryan Newman's surge to the front of the pack in the 50th running of the Daytona 500 to capture victory.

Now four races into the season, we've seen our share of off-track penalties coming (Carl Edwards) and going (Robby Gordon) and always-reliable-to-stir-things-up Tony Stewart's tirade against Goodyear tires. Kyle Busch won the Sprint Cup race at Atlanta for his new team as well as the Craftsman series truck duel, and led over 150 laps of the Nationwide race until a tire blew out and took him out of contention. Talk about logging the miles!

Kenseth would be right in the thick of things had he not been wrecked twice -- by Jeff "I'm sorry I did that" Gordon, and his own teammate David Ragan. Still, the season's young and I know Matt will be there at the end. Even Travis Kvapil scored a top ten finish in Las Vegas in his unsponsored #28, so Wisconsinites are plenty enthused about the showing of our local talent.

2008 Daytona 500 Intro. Toby Lightman battled the flu to
shoot video footage in Los Angeles for this sequence.

Adding to the excitement is the new opening theme for NASCAR on Fox. Performed by the lovely Toby Lightman, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)" drops Darrell Waltrip's signature line into this rousing number. The 28-year-old Philly native pitched the song to NASCAR to use as its musical opening for coverage of the Daytona 500. The sanctioning body liked it so much, they've decided to run it before all the races televised on Fox.

Though currently residing in Manhattan, Lightman fires up the steel guitar to present a thoroughly modern country song perfectly suited to the sport's Southern roots. If you're not a racing aficionado, a line like "love a last lap, turn four pass and my guy takes the checkered flag" will go sailing over your head. Only the other hand, phrases like "love it when it's four-wide" or "love it when they're drafting" or "love it when they slide" can be colorfully interpreted by the imagination of the non-race fan.

Despite a running time of just less than two minutes, "NASCAR Love (Let's Go Racing)" still manages to wear out the welcome of Waltrip's distinctive and enthusiastic ushering in of every dropped green flag ("can't wait to hear DW say, 'boogidy, boogidy, boogidy... let's go racing, boys!'") and includes a queer bagpipes interlude. Not exactly an instrument you'd associate with the redneck nation. The song is available for download at iTunes.

After Kelly Clarkson was so visibly touted as the voice for NASCAR last year, it was kind of a surprise to see her supplanted by a new face. (I've since learned the former American Idol winner's association was only contracted for one year.) Lightman isn't exactly a household name, but she is an established recording artist with two major label releases to her credit, 2004's Little Things and 2006's Bird On A Wire, while also appearing on a couple of motion picture soundtracks, P.S. I Love You ("My Sweet Song") and Uptown Girls ("Frightened").

I'll miss Fox when racing leaves the network for the summer months, not only because the quality of the coverage dips precipitously, but I'll also be pining for a li'l "NASCAR Love."