Brad Paisley and Jeff Gordon: Two of a Kind

By Marty Smith - ESPN

Family, faith and Virginia Tech football not withstanding, my life's greatest passions are NASCAR racing and country music, and for the very same reason: Both are authentically southern and fundamentally rooted in an outlaw past.

Anyway (David Pearson shout-out), those passions collided at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday. Brad Paisley showed up at the Sprint All-Star Race to hang out with a couple old buddies, Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon, and debut the video for his excellent new single, "Old Alabama."

It was the perfect scenario. Paisley already was planning to attend the race as a fan, then found out the track had a television screen on the backstretch big enough for the astronauts to watch from Endeavour. Why not debut a video on it?

So there he was, parked on site in the Nationwide garage, seated in the heavenly shadow cast by his blue and white tour bus.

Most folks in the racing industry are aware of my country music fandom. Including the Hendrick Motorsports folks. So they arranged for me to sit for a time in Paisley's shade to chat about the video, which includes a slew of Hendrick's classic cars and stars Gordon, naturally, as Paisley's buddy.

Real-life pals Jeff Gordon and Brad Paisley play good buddies in the country music video "Old Alabama."

It was 4 p.m. And it was at least 8,000 degrees. In 2010, Paisley released a song called "Water." I thought I'd make a quip about the heat and how badly I could use some water. But then I realized that wouldn't be funny. So I didn't.

When I sat, I shared with him that I'm probably the biggest country music fan on Earth.

"Oh, wow, good," he said. "I'm glad to know that person exists."

Zing.

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