With a packed grandstand as backdrop, drivers head to the first turn on the first lap of the Price Chopper 400. Tony Stewart won the race Sunday in Kansas City, Kan.

Kansas City, Kan. ? While weaving through the parking lots Sunday at Kansas Speedway for the Price Chopper 400, lost as usual, a thought struck me. Before it died of loneliness, I wrote it down: The last time I saw this many people whose lives were so consumed with worshipping the entertainers they were about to watch was at a Grateful Dead concert at Soldier Field in Chicago in the early ’90s.

Another thought, this one incredibly insightful: Deadheads and gearheads don’t seem to have a great deal in common. Who knew?

Female Deadhead profile: long, flowing, loose-fitting, pleated skirt, a flower in her hair, pretty eyes streaked with red.

Female gearhead profile: eyes hidden behind shades, left arm hanging out the window, hand clutching a Diet Pepsi and a dwindling cancer stick.

Deadhead color scheme: Tie-dyed.

NASCAR color scheme: red, white and blue on the bills of caps, on car flags, on blue-jeans back pockets.

Not a single sign of NBA or Major League Baseball loyalty. An NFL team flag here or there, an occasional KU, Missouri or Nebraska T-shirt, but mostly ball caps and flags with the number of a driver or the logo of a sponsor.

NASCAR is all about naked aggression. A Dead show was all about peace and love, man. And oddly timed giggling.

A cloud of smoke goes up at a NASCAR race and the crowd gets nervous, fears the worst, then experiences mass relief if it’s only a spin-out or fender-bender.

When a cloud of smoke went up at a Dead concert, that meant the music soon would sound more amazing, more cosmic to those creating the cloud. They soon would become one with the sounds, their concentration level shifting from intense to nearly nonexistent and back to almost perfect. While the focus was on hiatus, they forgot what song they were listening to and sometimes had to wait a while to find out because, it seemed, the late guitar-great Jerry Garcia forgot what song he was playing and creatively jammed his way down new paths before winding back to the tune he had been playing 15 minutes ago.

Another difference between Dead concerts and NASCAR: The music was a lot better at Dead shows. The band Kansas (“Carry on Wayward Son,” “Dust in the Wind,” etc.) played before Sunday’s race, making the crowd roar before the engines did. Just wondering: Did the band get permission from the Kansas University athletic department to use the word Kansas on its album covers? From atop of the luxurious motor coach belonging to Robby Gordon, the driver of the No. 7 car, I asked Gordon’s pal, Joe College proprietor Larry Sinks, that very question, thinking maybe a little gallows humor might help. With stiff upper lip, Sinks laughed.

The top of the motor coach not only was a good vantage point for watching cars grind past, but for seeing what it is the drivers do before climbing into their cars: Not long before the start of the race, Tony Stewart ducked into the nearby Johnny On the Spot, preparing for his 400-mile drive. A few hours later, he crossed the finish line first. Strangely, spectators didn’t spark lighters, demanding he gun the engine for a few more encore laps.