More than 80,000 visitors are expected to visit the Cabarrus County Fair this week. It's been an attraction in the county for more than 60 years.
The Cabarrus County Fair has more than 40 rides, 36 games, a petting zoo and educational exhibits on everything from gardening to quilting.
Yashik Singh is here visiting from Durban, South Africa to check out NASCAR, but also for a very different kind of race: the Robinson's Racing Pigs.
Announcer Randy Ross: "In Lane 1: We have Hammy Faye Bacon, In Lane # 2: It's Lindsay Slowham. In Lane #3: It's Christina Hoguilera. And in Lane #4: We have Britney Spare Ribs."
These pigs are three month old potbellies racing around a small oval track filled with hay. The pig that gets to the finish line the fastest gets the biggest piece of an Oreo cookie. The rest are left with the crumbs.
The pigs also kick their legs quickly to swim across a pool 24-feet long pool. Randy Ross and his wife spend three weeks training the pigs to race. He's been putting on this show for the last 30 years.
"Most people, when they think of pigs, they think of fat, lazy animals that lay around all day and when they see these pigs race around the track in about six seconds, it's something different," Ross says.
Next to the pigs, kids watch the Rowdy Rooster Puppet Show, an act with a yellow rooster and a weasel. The puppet show teaches kids about the outdoors:
"Kids! We've had a lot of fun here today with all our shenanigans," the rooster says. "But kids, remember, never go fishing alone. What if you fell in? Who would be there to pull you out? And remember, kids, wherever you go! Go prepared."
Indoors, you'll find the petting zoo and learn how to milk a cow. Seven-year-old Douglas Holmes explains how to do it:
"I just had to pull these two things that were hanging from the belly and it just squirted out milk."
You can also check out a 227-pound watermelon and learn about crafts like woodturning.
Jack Reyome is a woodturner in Concord. He gives away small wooden pieces to children who stop by the booth.
"We want the arts to continue, because they're doing away with so many of the shop classes in schools and stuff like that. That the arts are going by the wayside as far as even down to cutting a board," Reyome says. "The kids don't get that teaching anymore, we've got to have skilled labor out there. Not everybody can work on a computer and make it."
The fair will be open until September 13 at the Cabarrus Arena in Concord.