To passersby, it looked like the Bowyer family was enjoying a picnic on a beautiful October day in the drivers’ bus lot at Talladega Superspeedway last season. NASCAR driver Clint, his wife, Lorra, and their two toddlers, Cash and Presley, were together on a blanket just outside their motorhome.

People thought they were having a lovely moment in the middle of a hectic playoff-race weekend, Lorra chuckled. They had no idea the family was outside because Lorra and the kids had been violently sick in the confines of their luxurious motorhome — that could not have seemed tinier at the time — just hours earlier.

It started the night before the Bowyer family was supposed to fly from their North Carolina home to the Alabama track when Cash, who was 4 at the time, began throwing up. Lorra wanted to skip the race and stay home with him, and on any other weekend, she would have. But the family planned to travel straight from Talladega to Kansas, Clint’s home state, to visit family before the next race the following weekend.

The next day, they all still got on the plane and went to Talladega. Lorra said Cash and the rest of the family seemed OK during the trip — until he got sick again, this time in the motorhome.

“Then a little while later, Presley starts throwing up,” Lorra said about her now-2-year-old daughter. “I start throwing up. So all three of us are sitting in this 40-foot motorhome puking in bathrooms. I’m trying to clean after Presley’s puking, getting the bleach out. I’m throwing up.

“Clint’s like, ‘What do I do?!’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know! I want to go home!’”

The scene the next day may have looked peaceful, like a family enjoying some quality time together. In reality, the Bowyers just had to escape the inside of their bus.

“People are like, ‘Oh how sweet, they’re having a picnic,’” Lorra continued. “No, they’re trying to bleach a motorhome.”

The fast-traveling stomach bug took out 13 people, from the pilot of their private jet to both of Clint’s parents and an aunt and an uncle in Kansas, Lorra said.

NASCAR drivers race up to 38 weekends a year, 35 of which are away from their homes in North Carolina. Those who have families rely on their significant others to manage the chaos. Sure, many travel on private planes, and their motorhomes can be quite posh. But strip away the glamorous jet-setting and for nine months, NASCAR moms are managing to raise (or at least placate) rowdy, crying, sick or stir-crazy kids while living out of a bus in a parking lot when the dads are at work.

“You’re stuck in this really nice cracker box, but it closes in eventually,” Katelyn Larson, Kyle Larson’s wife, said. Their son, Owen, is four, and their daughter, Audrey, is about 16 months old. She said their family now frequently travels on Denny Hamlin’s plane with his longtime partner, Jordan Fish, and their two daughters, 6-year-old Taylor and 2-year-old Molly.

Lorra and Katelyn recognize how fortunate they are — not just with their lifestyles but also because, unlike so many others in the NASCAR industry, they get to see their husbands while they work every weekend. They’re grateful for the position they’re in and careful not to complain.

But there are certainly challenges tied to raising children on the road, and they insist they still have an abundance of normal parenting moments. Despite the seemingly perfect lives often portrayed on social media, their kids still throw temper tantrums in public, and they still refuse to eat their vegetables. Nap time is still a battle (and can be a real struggle if it overlaps with cars on the track), and avoiding boredom during race weekends is a perpetual goal.

Sure, Samantha and Kyle Busch threw their then-3-year-old son, Brexton, an extravagant dinosaur-themed birthday party at their home last year, and it was recently featured on CMT’s reality show Racing Wives, which often plays up their dazzling lifestyle. But this year, he also celebrated his birthday with a Transformers-themed party at Kyle’s hauler with the No. 18 Toyota team at the track, Samantha said.

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Drivers try to survive — and win — in a highly competitive sport. But many of the significant others who are moms also know they can lean on each other for help, whether they are out of Band-Aids, are looking for a babysitter while they leave the track for a quick Target run or maybe just need a few minutes alone. They consult with each other to make sure their kids are on pace educationally, particularly as they prepare for full-time school.

All of that is made easier when their children are the same age, like the practically inseparable Cash Bowyer and Owen Larson, whose birthdays are only about three months apart. Kids building friendships leads to the same for the moms — if they weren’t close already. A “good group of girls” becomes their “life support” when they’re living out of different parking lots throughout the country, Lorra Bowyer said.

“I was super shy in the beginning,” Katelyn Larson said. “I think I came off as probably bitchy instead of shy. So I think [Lorra] was a little intimidated by me, and I was intimidated by her. But kids make everything easier when you have something to talk about. And it’s funny stuff, like there’s poop running up their back or spitting up on their dads right before driver intros.”

The bus lot is like living in a traveling community, said Samantha Busch, who attends just about every race — even if she’s just flying in on race day with team owner Joe Gibbs. During race weekends, she said moms are regularly outside and watching their kids play on nearby grass, in the low-traffic bus lot or on the occasional playgrounds tracks set up, like at Daytona International Speedway and Kansas Speedway.

And unsurprisingly, their 4-year-old son, Brexton can often be found racing scooters, bikes or Power Wheels in the lot with other kids his age. “You can go on your scooter if you wear a helmet and go slow,” Samantha paused to say to Brexton during one interview for this story.

“As competitive of a sport that it is, it’s really nice that away from the track, we can all just hang out and be friends and support each other,” she said.

“There will be times that [Lorra] will text me or I’ll text her like, ‘Oh, I’m out of kids’ Tylenol. Do you have any?’ Or, ‘Hey, he has this rash, have you ever seen this before?’ So it’s nice to be able to have a group of other people around you who understand the schedule and who understand this whole craziness.”

Plus, Brexton is “obsessed” with Uncle Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother, so even when they’re on the road, they’re still with family at the track each weekend, adding a unique level to their specific support system.

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The veteran moms pass down their hard-learned lessons and wisdom to the newer ones with growing families. Same goes for those who have mastered the tricks to traveling with more than one child. Lorra Bowyer said Katie Kenseth, Matt Kenseth’s wife and the mother of four daughters, taught her “how to do NASCAR with kids” because the transition from traveling with only your husband or boyfriend to traveling with a child can seem impossible. (With 47-year-old Matt currently off the Cup Series circuit, Lorra said it “breaks my heart” Katie isn’t part of NASCAR’s traveling moms anymore.)

Lorra said Katie taught her about the must-do activities, like apple picking when they’re at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. And she learned first-hand what not to do, like team up and drive 80 miles to Boston for a day trip with five antsy kids in the backseat.

High fives, hugs and big smiles both before and after daddy’s win @MartinsvilleSwy. 🥰 🕰 pic.twitter.com/yYPdiByooX — Paige Keselowski (@PaigeKeselowski) March 26, 2019

A big accomplishment is figuring out how to manage the often oppressive summer heat during visits to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“We set up a volleyball net, a pool, a slip ‘n’ slide, sand,” Lorra recalled about one specific weekend. “It’s so hot, and there’s nothing for the kids to do because going to the zoo in Indy, it’s fun, but after 20 minutes, you’re going to get so hot. We had probably one of the best weekends there. It was us, the Kenseths, McMurrays, Larsons, [and] Almirolas. …

“The Hamlins came down and played, the Johnsons came down and played as soon as they found out about our gig. Moms sat around with beers — no, I’m just kidding.”

Rain is their nemesis because as great at their motorhomes are, getting trapped inside them during inclement weather can be suffocating. But the moms agreed the solution is being prepared. They play board games and Jenga, paint and do crafts or watch movies. Around Easter, they’ll hunt for eggs. They do science projects and create volcanoes. Anything to keep the children occupied, especially while they’re cooped up.

Regardless of which track they’re at, NASCAR moms ultimately master how to entertain their kids as they go.

And for that, Samantha Busch has a secret weapon: A notebook filled with details about the various tracks. Written down are routines for each track, from favorite restaurants to fun hiking spots to children’s museums — although she said she knows much of it by heart now after a few years of making memories and consulting her notes.

If drivers and their families have kids, chances are they know which tracks are great for them and which ones could lead to a miserable weekend in the bus lot, she said.

They know Kansas has a LEGOLAND and aquarium, they know Pocono Raceway has a nearby waterpark and, of course, they know Daytona isn’t a far drive from Disney World, where Lorra said she went for a couple days before the Daytona 500 with her kids, along with the Larsons and Brad and Paige Keselowski, who have a 4-year-old daughter, Scarlett, and another one due in December.

Kyle Busch, however, might not be returning to the trampoline park near the historic Daytona track anytime soon after rolling his ankle in February when he “got double-bounced by a seven year old,” according to Samantha.

The Buschs strive to create as many learning opportunities for Brexton as possible, especially as Samantha — who also works as an executive for Kyle Busch Motorsports while running her own clothing line — is “leaning toward” homeschooling him for at least a little while. So even if they weren’t at every race — she said Brexton is typically at around 30 of them — they’d be doing many of these activities as a family in the Charlotte area anyway.

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For so many children of NASCAR drivers, life on the road is their version of normal because race weekends consume so much of the year. Brexton has been traveling since he was six days old, and Samantha said sometimes during the offseason, he now will ask to go hang out in the motorhome because he loves his bunk bed in there. He also relates to the sport through the kids he’s around. To him, Kevin Harvick didn’t win a race; Keelan’s dad did.

“[The kids] don’t know any different,” said Jimmie Johnson, who has two daughters, 9-year-old Genevieve and almost-6-year-old Lydia, with his wife, Chandra. The seven-time Cup Series champion said his family travels to about 60 percent of the races, mostly during the school year — they take them out on Friday or travel on the weekends to nearby tracks — because camp takes precedence over NASCAR in the summer.

“It’s kind of the beauty of it. I guess when I retire, we’ll figure out what the true experience was for them,” he said.

Of course, kids don’t make it to every race. Life gets in the way, and the West Coast swing early in the season is rough on little ones. And sometimes, parents just want the time alone; Samantha said Brexton understands that he doesn’t go to Sonoma Raceway because “that’s mommy-daddy time.”

But overall, when drivers are so accustomed to family dinners and hanging out with their kids at the end of their hectic days, not having them around there can feel isolating.

“You miss them,” Kyle Busch said. “You get lonely. You’re watching TV or you’re looking at your notes and studying race film and things like that, and it’s like, ‘OK, I’m done with this.’ I’d much rather be playing with Brex or doing something else and having some family time. But those are the nights you go to bed early.”

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Traveling around the country and learning how to raise kids on the road in a different city every weekend tends to get easier as the kids get older, Lorra Bowyer said. That’s partly because kids sleep better and partly from parents eventually adjusting as their motorhome begins to feel like their actual home.

But growing up doesn’t mean there aren’t still embarrassing moments every now and then, as Katelyn Larson explained. They’re just easier to laugh at now compared with a baby throwing up on dad before he’s about to drive a scorching race car for three hours.

“It’s funny now because the boys are old enough that they make their own opinions about some of the drivers,” Katelyn said. “Owen on the playground the other day gave Joey Logano a big thumbs down, and I was like, ‘That’s really embarrassing. I’m so sorry!’

“But I was like, ‘He makes his own opinion, and he watches you now, so I don’t know what you did.’ ”

NASCAR moms describe life on the road as crazy, exhausting, unpredictable and adventurous. But it’s normal for them. Of course, the offseason from December to mid-February is welcomed, and it’s exciting for a couple months to not get on a plane and live out of a motorhome.

And they may never be finished with difficult parenting lessons on the road or be done making mistakes that are only funny in hindsight, like the time Samantha and Kyle Busch were so caught up with their newborn that they left their dog in the airport parking lot. But bouncing around the country most of the year is what they do.

They celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in random cities (though many times, it’s the same city each year). If they get sick, sometimes they still have to travel. And no matter what, they’re simply trying to raise happy and healthy kids. This is their traditional lifestyle, and when you strip away all the glitz and glam, “we’re just like any other family,” Samantha said.

“People say, ‘Wow, you’ve got a three year old and you’ve got all this stuff going on, why don’t you just stay at home?’ ” she said.

“I’m like, ‘Because we’re a family, we love spending time together, and this is our time.’ … Kyle is [Brexton’s] absolute idol, so even sometimes, it’s a lot to travel when you’re going, going, going. For us, it’s just the best.”