Dana White and Chuck Liddell's Talladega Night

The 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway is the fastest racetrack in the world and the president of the fastest growing sport's biggest promotion, Dana White, and former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight titleholder Chuck Liddell will be attending this weekend's Aaron's 499 at the storied Alabama landmark.

Mixed martial arts and NASCAR both rose from grass roots backgrounds into mainstream sports with effective marketing and a bit of luck. Their histories are extremely similar. It was the now famous The Ultimate Fighter season one finale featuring the epic bout between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin that launched mixed martial arts into mainstream, and while NASCAR is about racing, it's rise to greatness also began with a fight.

While much of the country was inundated with winter weather and the blizzard of 1978-79, people were glued to their television sets in mid-February of 1979, and what they saw was a final lap wreck in the Daytona 500 when leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison bounced off one another on the backstreatch that led to a fist fight between Yarborough and the Allison brothers, Donnie and Bobby. The interest in NASCAR dramatically increased as a result.

The NASCAR and mixed martial arts demographics are very similar, dominated by the 18-35 male. And while White and Liddell aren't likely to see a fight – although anything is possible – they will witness four-wide racing at speeds close to 200 miles per hour.

It will be White's and Liddell's first time attending a NASCAR event.