As the month of May dawned, I found hope along Interstate 20 in central Alabama.

A convoy of RVs rumbled down the highway, headed to the Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday's Geico 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race. Many of them rolled past another racetrack, the sparkling Barber Motorsports Park, still in cleanup mode, having just hosted the Grand Prix of Alabama, the fourth race of the IndyCar season and the last before the series headed home to Indianapolis to begin the countdown to the Indianapolis 500.

The races were held seven days apart. The tracks are only 35 miles apart. Both racetracks had nice crowds. Both hosted competitive races. Both sets of executives came away from their events pleased with the outcome, competitively and financially. Talladega let Barber borrow some of their trams to move fans around during the IndyCar race weekend. Barber let Talladega advertise over the public address system to sell tickets for the next weekend's race.

During a visit to Talladega's International Motorsports Hall of Fame, I picked up a brochure for the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. "It's a cool place," a Hall of Fame worker said. When I visited that museum, the woman at the desk in turn suggested that I also visit the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

No one at one place whispered bad stuff about the other. They genuinely seemed to want me, as a race fan, to know about the goings-on at both. "We need to help each other out," a Barber employee said to me as she helped prepare for a very high-end birthday party, complete with a view of sports cars gliding around the road course out the window, while Bobby Allison's Miller High Life Buick and Mario Andretti's 1969 Lotus IndyCar sat nearby. "You know, a high tide raises all boats. We all need the business these days, so why not cooperate?"

This was nice. It was pleasant. It was also not typical.

There were no eye-rolling accusations of "that wine and cheese crowd," even though there was plenty of both being served at that birthday party. Just as there was no growling about "those NASCAR rednecks," though there were thousands down the road watching Dale Earnhardt Jr. win on Sunday, having watched girls in bikinis wrestling in barbecue sauce the night before.

Honestly, I'd expected such badmouthing from both. Sadly, I've been conditioned to expect it.