With the race to the White House heating up more than this year's Chase, Todd Palin took the chance to visit the NASCAR Nation this weekend at the Martinsville Speedway. With Virginia an unexpected swing state in the upcoming election, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee's husband jumped at the opportunity to experience a NASCAR race and try to win some votes.

The First Gentleman of Alaska is a snowmobile racer and a four-time Tesoro Iron Dog champion. A 1,971-mile race across the state of Alaska, the Tesoro Iron Dog consists of teams of two drivers in two sleds. Definitely not a walk in the park, Palin knows a thing or two about racing.

"We have a lot of Alaskan residents that follow the NASCAR circuit," Palin told HardcoreRaceFans.com. "They actually fly down to a lot of the other events, mostly on the West Coast. I just wanted to come down here and see the race, see the production, meet and greet people and let them know that I'm a racer and it's a great American tradition."

Some of the most loyal people in the nation, NASCAR fans are a large voting block that politicians, mostly conservative, have courted for years. Ronald Reagan was the first U.S. President to visit a NASCAR race in 1984. President Reagan's visit came on the same day Richard Petty - a long-time Republican supporter - scored his 200th and final career victory. Just a few weeks ago, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and his wife Cindy made an appearance in New Hampshire to kick-off the Chase.

Team owner Joe Gibbs addressed the party at the Republican National Convention in September. A Christian conservative, Gibbs believes visits by politicians and, in this case their families, is a good thing for the sport.

"I think it says they have an interest in the sport, fans and in particular the NASCAR fan," Gibbs told HardcoreRaceFans.com. "I think that says a lot for the NASCAR fan and says a lot about the political person, that they have an interest in appealing to the NASCAR fan. We have all kinds of a cross-section of fans here and they probably have all kinds of ideas politically."

While the NASCAR community and the NASCAR Nation has typically been overwhelmingly conservative, Jeff 'The Mayor' Burton hopes people will have an open mind.

"The politicians make the laws and the rules and that impacts us as a sport and of course as individuals, so it comes up a lot," Burton explained at a press conference at Dover in September. "I don't think it's unpopular to be a Democrat. I hope it's not. I would like to think that we make our decisions based on what's best for us as individuals and what's best for the country and that could change from being a Democrat to a Republican ever so often. Certainly this has been a heavily conservative garage for a long time, but I would by no means say it's unpopular if you were not a conservative, if you were Democrat. I hope that's the case."

Politics is always a touchy subject no matter your personal beliefs. When mixed with a sport with a fan base as loyal as NASCAR, the possibilities are endless.