Suggested motor sports reading

I don't agree with the recommendation of "Sunday Money." I like Jeff OK, I really do. But I thought his book reflected exactly the WRONG attitude people should take if they're going to cover NASCAR. Jeff writes about America outside of New York being "off-ramp America" and about it's sameness. The fact, of course, is that there's a lot more of that type of America than there is New York City-style America. Jeff also acts like he's stunned there are people who come to NASCAR races who also have shoes and teeth. It was like Jeff sees all NASCAR fans right at the end of his nose, and if you come into racing with that attitude people will sniff it out from the word "go."
Golenbock's books are very, very good. I particularly like "Last Lap." And I absolutely second the idea of reading NASCAR Scene. There are terrific writers on that staff, top to bottom. But the other reason to read Scene is that it's sort of the hometown newspaper for the mobile community that is NASCAR. The letters to the editor show you what moves the needle for the fans.
I will make one more suggestion that is only partly self-serving. There's a book called "Taking Stock," and it's a collection of stories by guys who've covered the beat a while about things that interested us. I have three chapters in it, but Monte Dutton, Mike Hembree, Jim McLaurin and several others also contributed chapters and I think it's a good cross section of what makes NASCAR different.
Ed Hinton's Daytona book is especially good when he's giving you the history of the area and how racing got started here. "Driving with the Devil," by Neal Thompson, is also a very good read about the sport's early years.

 

Poole is one of the best writers in the field. Besides the collection of stories he mentioned, you should check out his regular work at the Charlotte Observer's Web site.

Besides Poole's stuff, I regularly read work by Monte Dutton (Gaston Gazette), Dave Kallmann (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and anything Curt Cavin or Steve Ballard writes for the Indianapolis Star.

That's just my two cents.

 

Have to agree with Mira here. Mr. Poole's work is the benchmark - both books and beat writing. I'd read Dutton as well, and Hinton and Jenna Fryer if I were trying to sort out the beat before I got there.

 

Do you really think this bolded part is true, Dave? Or do you think it's the perspective of an insider bristling at a realistic and honest examination of the people who make up NASCAR culture? I think the book is extremely kind to, and respectful of, the people in and surrounding the sport while at the same time remaining honest. I don't sense disdain or arrogance at all. It focuses on different things than NASCAR writers typically focus on, certainly -- mostly because it's an essay about America as much as it is a sports book -- but the idea that you'll be "sniffed out" immediately because you glean something from the book's intellectual analysis about the sport, and that you'll be left crying, alone, next to the haulers each day, is silly. It's easy to say, "Oh, New York writer, having heard about this wacky thing called NASCAR, shows up to snicker at what he considers the unwashed masses," but that's your projection onto the text. No disrespect to your own work or anyone else's, but it's certainly the most beautiful, most descriptive, most lyrical book ever written about motorsports, and enigami could do much worse than to try and study some of its vivid descriptions and its lyrical sentences.

 

Double Down -- Beautiful? Lyrical? My Lord. If I thought it was realistic or honest, do you think I would have come on here and, using my own name, criticized the book? I started the book wanting very much to like it. By halfway through I just felt disappointed. I didn't mean to imply that anybody would be "sniffed out" for gleaning insight from Jeff's book. I think you would be sniffed out if you came in here thinking you're dealing with a bunch of stupid hicks and showed that disdain the way Jeff did and the way columnists have done in major cities every time NASCAR has made forays into that environment. From my years doing this, I can find you 20 columns filled with the same "Bubba" stereotypes written by 20 different guys that read like paint-by-number pieces. The NASCAR thread on this board has a moderator who asks, virtually every week, "Who beat?" That's not me projecting anything.

 

I find it fascinating that you took that from the book. I don't think there was a single word in Sunday Money that demonstrated "disdain" for NASCAR or its fans. Perspective, I guess...

 

There is nothing in the book that suggests all of NASCAR is little more than an outlaw nation full of stupid hicks who are somehow less worthy than anyone else. I dare you, in fact, to cite such a passage.

I understand your frustration about people who look down their noses at the South and NASCAR. I share it. I grew up in Red State America, I know all about the disgust some people have for "fly over country," and yes, there are few things more tired than writers who resort to the same cliches when they write about NASCAR, especially those who do it solely from the air conditioned press box.

MacGregor didn't do that. There are, in fact, countless vignettes in the book about how the Wal-Marts and Home Depots and Lowes are not only the modern cathedrals of this country, but that they represent an America that is both real, and in their own way, comforting and beautiful. If you read the last scene before the epilogue in the book, where the old man with white hair and parchment skin is shouting "That's racin!" at the statue of Dale Earnhardt, and see it as MacGregor mocking that guy, or the sport, or the love and connection NASCAR fans feel for drivers like #3, you completely misread it. And maybe the entire book. The book is funny in places, sure, but it's never disrespectful. The part where the two shirtless guys are screaming to get Dale Jarrett's attention, and end up calling him a mutherfuckingcocksucker isn't making fun of them. It's showing how desperately they want to make a connection with Jarrett, and how much it hurts not to be acknowledged by someone you love. You can love something without whitewashing its flaws and its idiosyncrasies. The fact that the book was written by someone who lives in New York is completely irrelevant, other than that fact seems to have clouded your reading of it. The book's not about loving NASCAR and loving America despite all it's bizarre, complicated, strange, goofy characters. It's about loving NASCAR and America precisely BECAUSE of all that. Before reading the book, I had very little interest in NASCAR and probably some uninformed biases about the people who follow it. By the end, I found myself, in a bizarre way, loving the sport and the people because I realized how much the sport and its fans truly are a part of the great American tapestry. Just like New York city and its inhabitants.

And yes, the writing is both beautiful and lyrical. It's literature. It's one of only a handful of books about sports written in the last (however many) years to rise to the level of literature.

That it was not universally embraced by gearheads upon its publication matters very little. It may very well be a point (or several points) in its favor.

 

Would this be an especially bad time to suggest Racing For Dummies? It might be lyrical ... maybe.

 

I think I'll read "Sunday Money" for myself, then tell you all who is right and who is wrong.

... seriously though, thanks for all the rec's. Keep 'em coming.

 

Double Down, as is our right, we'll disagree on this one.