Overview

This is an unauthorized history of southern stock car racing. 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.

Full Product Details

9780807833841

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Reviews

""Real NASCAR can be read by racing fans who will share stories about Bill France and Curtis Turner at lunch tables and bars all over America at the same time it becomes a key text in the reading lists of university courses on Southern culture."" -- Virginia Libraries ""[A] fascinating history of the era."" -- Bookforum ""An enthusiastic study that brings to life NASCAR's mythology and reality. . . . This volume will delight fans; researches will appreciate the bounty of resources cited. . . . Recommended."" -- CHOICE ""Capture[s] the spirit of the early years of rough-and-tumble stock racing."" -- Roanoke Times ""Details the sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. . . . A story that readers will find both fascinating and controversial."" -- McCormick Messenger ""If you're a Southerner, by birth or by inclination, and love Southern foodways, folkways, highways, and low-ways, you'll lap up Daniel S. Pierce's Real NASCAR . . . like grits and red-eye gravy, even if you've never been to a stock car race or watched one on television."" -- Our State ""Of the many books on NASCAR history, few have been either as thorough or as authoritative as this one. . . . 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."" -- Library Journal starred review ""Rollicking and innovative. . . . A history that is captivating, insightful, and surprising. . . . Enthusiastically recommend[ed]."" -- Florida Historical Quarterly ""Stories of stock car racing and moonshining come to life through oral histories. . . . Real NASCAR contains an energy and respect for its subject that reveals the historian's personal enthusiasm. Even if you have never been a NASCAR fan, you will find much to keep you reading in this intriguing history of the sport."" -- Smoky Mountain Living ""The first comprehensive history of early southern stock-car racing that reflects its rustic character but not at the expense of academic rigor."" -- Journal of Southern History

[A] fascinating history of the era. <br>- Bookforum

A rich source of the forgotten lore and overlooked history of stock car racing in America. Students of southern history and stock car racing fans alike will want a copy of this fascinating and eminently readable history. <br>- Journal of East Tennessee History

Details the sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. . . . A story that readers will find both fascinating and controversial. -- McCormick Messenger

Author Information

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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