Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France

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Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France Pub. Date: 4/1/2010 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press, The

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Overview

In this history of the stock car racing circuit known as NASCAR, Daniel Pierce offers a revealing new look at the sport from its postwar beginnings on Daytona Beach and Piedmont dirt tracks through the early 1970s when the sport spread beyond its southern roots and gained national recognition. Following NASCAR founder Big Bill France from his start as a mechanic, Real NASCAR details the sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. Pierce not only confirms the popular notion of NASCAR's origins in bootlegging, but also establishes beyond a doubt the close ties between organized racing and the illegal liquor industry, a story that readers will find both fascinating and controversial.

Drawing on the memories of a variety of participants--including highly colorful characters like Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, Gober Sosebee, Smokey Ynick, Bunky Knudsen, Humpy Wheeler, Bobby Isaac, Junior Johnson, and Big Bill France himself--Real NASCAR shows how the reputation for wildness of these racers-by-day and bootleggers-by-night drew throngs of spectators to the tracks in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. They came to watch their heroes maneuver ordinary automobiles at incredible speed, beating and banging on each other, wrecking spectacularly, and fighting out their differences in the infield.

Although France faced many challenges--including a fickle Detroit that often seemed unsure of its support for the sport, safety issues that killed star drivers and threatened its very existence, and drivers who twice tried to unionize to gain a bigger piece of the NASCAR pie--by the early 1970s France and his allies had laid a firm foundation for what has become today a billion-dollar industry and arguably the largest spectator sport in America.
In this history of the stock car racing circuit known as NASCAR, Daniel Pierce offers a revealing new look at the sport from its postwar beginnings on Daytona Beach and Piedmont dirt tracks through the early 1970s when the sport spread beyond its southern roots and gained national recognition. Following NASCAR founder Big Bill France from his start as a mechanic, Real NASCAR details the sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. Pierce not only confirms the popular notion of NASCAR's origins in bootlegging, but also establishes beyond a doubt the close ties between organized racing and the illegal liquor industry, a story that readers will find both fascinating and controversial.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Of the many books on NASCAR history, few have been either as thorough or as authoritative as this one. Pierce (history, Univ. of North Carolina, Asheville) applies his historian's touch by thoroughly and carefully laying out the story of NASCAR's birth and development, grounding it in the culture and value system of the working-class Piedmont South, one in which manhood was often measured by one's ability to drive a car. That same culture also gave rise to the bootlegging industry and traditions, from which flowed a steady supply of race car drivers, prize money, and racetrack builders. With land readily and inexpensively available, small racetracks sprouted throughout the region after World War II, quickly spreading stock car racing popularity. The final prerequisite for success was an organizer and promoter who could pull all the disparate pieces together. That person, "Big" Bill France, was legendary in the face of many obstacles. Pierce provides not only a finely detailed narrative of NASCAR's formative years but also an examination of why matters unfolded as they did and why people became so strongly attached to the sport. VERDICT Pierce's aim to build his work on documented evidence rather than widely accepted and oft-repeated lore makes his book a standout. Enthusiastically recommended as an important work that would serve an academic audience as well as general readers.—David Van de Streek, Penn State Univ. Libs., York

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807833841
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press, The
Publication date: 4/1/2010
Pages: 348
Sales rank: 295,443
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Daniel S. Pierce is associate professor and chair of the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He is author of The Great Smokies: From Natural Habitat to National Park.

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Anonymous

Posted May 15, 2012

Cool

Cool racing
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