TALLADEGA, Ala. -- In auto racing, there is simply no place like the big track outside this town in rural Alabama. Talladega International Speedway is the longest course in the Nascar circuit, and its turns are the steepest. Its crowds are the most boisterous.

It also has its own jail. The "holding facility," as track officials prefer to call it, is in a white cinder-block building just outside the track at Turn Three. It's needed because the two races held each year at Talladega are known as the wildest, rowdiest parties in Nascar.

More than 200,000 people descend on the track for its April and October events. Most of them camp out for the better part of a week in tents, trailers or mobile homes in the track's infield, or on the 2,000 acres of open land that is part of the speedway's grounds. Many are hard-drinking, hard-core fans who whoop it up for days.

"You get that many people together and naturally you're going to have some who get over-beveraged and get into trouble," Jimmy Kilgore, the chief deputy in the Talladega County sheriff's department, said on a sunny afternoon just before the Aaron's 499, the nearly-500-mile race that took place on April 30.

The scene at Talladega's infield presents a challenge for Nascar. Nascar racing has grown over the past 58 years from a largely Southern pastime into one of the fastest-growing and richest spectator sports in the country. Big auto makers and big-brand marketers pay millions to get their names on top drivers' uniforms and cars. Early stock-car racers, who learned their craft as moonshiners eluding police in the Appalachian hills, once gave Nascar an outlaw image. But now, Nascar's leaders are intent on continuing the sport's explosive growth by drawing in more families.

Mike Helton, Nascar's president, ran the Talladega track from 1987 until 1993. Sipping a glass of red wine in a paved, fenced-off area in the infield, Mr. Helton acknowledged that excessive partying is a "generic concern" for the racing circuit. "We want people to come here and have a good time," he said, but added, "It's easy to cross the line."

Over the past several years, the company that owns Talladega, International Speedway Corp., has gone to great lengths to tone down the atmosphere. In the infield, it has built a free shower house, added more flush toilets, paved roads, fenced off areas and limited traffic. Now infield campsites must be reserved.

In the outer areas, family camp sites have water hookups. There's a play area for kids and a climbing wall sponsored by the U.S. Army.

Inside Chief Kilgore's unassuming white security office are two large holding pens for men, with bare concrete floors and heavy chain-link fencing stretching up to and across the ceiling. Women are detained in a smaller room without fencing. Each male pen also has two small isolation cells. "Those are for folks who just don't want to behave," Chief Kilgore said.

Chief Kilgore grew up in Calhoun County, just north of the track. He isn't much of a racing fan himself. "I'm more into Alabama football," he smiled. Yet at every race for the past seven years he has overseen a force of 600 police officers from all over Alabama who are deputized to keep order in Talladega County. They typically arrest 100 or so people over the weekends in April and October when races are held.

"Disorderly conduct, public lewdness, driving under the influence, fighting," Chief Kilgore said, ticking off typical offenses on the fingers of a beefy hand. "They're mostly misdemeanors."

There are more serious incidents, too. A few days before the race on April 30, two fans were killed when the flagpole they were erecting on their mobile home was blown into power lines. Later that week, there was at least one, nonfatal stabbing.

The paved infield roads allow police cars to patrol. In the camping areas outside the track, the police tell guests to turn down their stereos and shut off their noisy generators at night. "Fans with families are our future," said Rick Humphrey, the track's general manager.

The main problem spot for Chief Kilgore is the north park camping area, across the street from the track's main entrance. There, camping is still free and still first-come, first-served. At night so many campfires are burning that it seems a thick acrid fog has descended. Blue police lights flash where there's trouble.

Just before midnight on Friday, a steady stream of arrests came from the north park area. A bare-chested man in muddy jeans sat on a bench, his arms handcuffed behind his back. A few minutes later he was fingerprinted and booked on a disorderly conduct charge for fighting.

Later he was to enter a plea before a magistrate: The county clerk's office sets up shop in the security office, too. "We offer one-stop shopping," Chief Kilgore explained.

All told, about 30 people were arrested on Friday. The most serious incident involved Ted Foster, 28, an owner of a lighting business in San Diego, who was camping in the north park. Around 2 a.m., there was an altercation between a woman and her father. Mr. Foster intervened. The next thing he knew, a woman was hitting him on the head with a beer bottle. When he fought her back, she pulled a knife.

Waiting in the security office Saturday morning to ask if police were investigating the incident, Mr. Foster lifted his new Talladega T-shirt to reveal a four-inch line of stitches just below his chest. He had spent the night in the hospital. "The doctor said I was lucky. It was deep and almost reached my lung," he said.

Police told Mr. Foster that they had found the woman but that she and several other people claimed Mr. Foster started the fight. Since everybody involved had been drinking, Mr. Foster included, the police couldn't tell which version was the truth and no one would be charged.

That night, with the crowd growing and getting more pumped-up as race day neared, was much busier than Friday. Chief Kilgore, wearing a maroon shirt with a gold star embroidered over one chest pocket, was on the job late into the morning hours. A total of 120 people were arrested.

By noon on Sunday, things were quiet. Three women staffers sat sipping coffee, the cell was empty and in the distance race cars revved their engines in preparation for the start of the race.