NASCAR and country music. Cars and guitars. Gasoline fumes and heartbreak. The combination is irresistible: Two industries with Southern roots that have grown into national institutions.

“It’s the same demographic. It’s the same fan. It’s the same person,” NASCAR driver Kyle Petty (right) said Friday. “Why can’t we put them together? For 20 years for some reason, no one’s been able to really put country music and the NASCAR community together.”

Now they have.

Sound & Speed in Music City features two days of auctions, autographs, race cars and concerts with drivers and singers to raise money for the Victory Junction Gang Camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and the Country Music Association’s Hall of Fame.

With Petty and country singer Vince Gill as co-chairmen, the star power is impressive.

Singers include Trace Adkins, Joe Nichols, Aaron Tippin, Jo Dee Messina and classic stars Brenda Lee and Mel Tillis. Both Petty and his father, Richard, and Michael Waltrip, Ryan Newman and Jaime McMurray are among the drivers attending along with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison.

“They’re coming on their own dime,” said Pattie Petty, who co-founded the camp with her husband in honor of son Adam, who died in May 2000 during practice in New Hampshire. “It’s two days they’re giving of their time. We don’t have very many days off. For them to do that is impressive on the talent side.”

Petty said music agent and promoter Don Light suggested creating a fundraiser for Victory Junction, which opened in 2004, and for the Hall of Fame, which moved to a new building in 2001.

“It was the perfect place in the perfect city, and it seemed like the perfect time,” Petty said.