The Last Lap : The Life and Times of NASCAR's Legendary Heroes [Hardcover]

Peter Golenbock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 1998

Stock car racing is not only the most popular sport in the country, it is among the most dangerous as well. Traveling at speeds of over 200 miles per hour, drivers risk their lives every time they take the wheel. In order to make it in this competitive sport, many drivers feel invincible and live their lives that way. The possibility of death looms at every turn, but is rarely discussed. In The Last Lap, bestselling author Peter Golenbock (American Zoom) interviews racers past and present, crew members, and families of drivers that have died both on and off the track before their time to give us an understanding of the unique personalities who race at high speeds for a living. Among those sharing their stories are racing legends David Pearson, Buddy Baker, Tim Flock and Marvin Panch, and the families of the late Curtis Turner, Tiny Lund, and the Allison brothers, Davey and Clifford. Golenbock draws out their fascinating stories and explores the hold the sport has on everyone who has ever participated in it and followed it. As NASCAR celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, The Last Lap tells the stories of those racing legends who helped make the sport great but who aren t around to share in the glory. Peter Golenbock is the author of many best selling sports

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In The Last Lap, the author of American Zoom chronicles the lives of NASCAR legends who pushed their racing cars--and sometimes their personal lives--to the limit. With danger lurking at each turn, the drivers form a colorful cast in an ever-traveling sideshow that has become the biggest spectator sport in the world. Golenbock interviews past and present racers, crew members, and families in this celebratory paean to the fast lane in American sports.

From the Back Cover

"The sport of stock car racing continues to grow exponentially. Bigger tracks, with larger purses, have been added to the schedule. Television coverage is unparalleled. When Dale Earnhardt died on the final lap of the Daytona 500 in February of 2001, more people were watching that race than ever before. His untimely death, viewed in real time by millions, marked an end to something special, a period in NASCAR history the likes of which we may never see again." —From the Introduction Alan Kulwicki Bill France, Sr. Curtis Turner Joe Weatherly Exclusive insights into the man known as "The Intimidator" "At any time during any race he was in, there was only one question everyone asked: ‘Where's Earnhardt?’ He was the standard by which all other drivers were measured." —From the Introduction "My mind will drift to Dale Earnhardt. I guess I always feel these guys are invincible. I know they're not. You just miss having him around. There's a void there. It's not just his competitiveness or his ability—it's everything, just his being there." —Eli Gold, TV Commentator for NASCAR Visit us at www.hungryminds.com --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan General Reference; 1 edition (January 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028621476
• ISBN-13: 978-0028621470
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,833,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have read a lot of books on NASCAR and this is the best!!!, May 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Lap : The Life and Times of NASCAR's Legendary Heroes (Hardcover)

Peter Golenbock has captured the true face of NASCAR. He interviewed old time racers and their families to give you a look at what there lives where like. Stories about Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Tim Flock, Maurice Petty and many others capture your attnetion for hours. This book is an absolute must have for any true NASCAR fan.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Much-Needed Antidote To PR on NASCAR's 50th, August 6, 1998

By 

Michael Daly "Monkeesfan" (Wakefield, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Lap : The Life and Times of NASCAR's Legendary Heroes (Hardcover)

Peter Golenbock first became involved in NASCAR with American Zoom, an oral history of the sport up to the 1992-3 seasons. Zoom was a superb look at the sport as seen from a variety of personalities. Golenbock, though, has outdone himself greatly with this superior oral history.

Golenbock interviews a variety of people involved in the sport since its 1949 inception. Featured are Tim Flock, in one of his last interviews before his passing; the widows of Curtis Turner and Dewayne "Tiny" Lund; Buddy Baker; Harry Hyde's nephew Tommy Johnson; Ralph Moody; Maurice Petty; and on.

The insights provided are often immortal. There is Maurice Petty's take on his brother Richard's career; he gives interesting insight into the factory wars of the 1960s, particularly Ford's involvement. "Ford (was) able to win the.... championship in 1968 because they threw a lot of Fords out there, a lot of drivers. They just kept throwing them out there...." Thirty ye! ars later, Ford's "buy-the-starting-field" tactic is still paying off.

The most heartbreaking section is Wanda Lund Early's story of her relationship with "Tiny" Lund, the 1963 Daytona 500 winner, who was killed in a horrendous pileup in the 1975 Talladega 500. In a cruel irony, Lund had not even qualified for that race, but when Grant Adcox's chief mechanic Gene Lovell died of a heart attack the day before the race, Adcox withdrew, and Lund - the first alternate - got his spot.

Wanda's relationship with Tiny got off to a decidedly bizarre start. "He turned me over on his knee" and spanked her "like a two year old. Then we were an item after that." She relates how Tiny had not particularly wanted to race at Talladega that day, but had given his word to owner A.J. King. Wanda's retelling of the gnawing trepidation that kept her from even listening to MRN Radio's call of the race that day leave's the reader sweating.

But the mos! t fascinating chapters are those of Lou Larosa. An engine ! builder with some of the best teams the sport has ever seen, Larosa gives a tremendously interesting insight into the evolution of the sport from the early 1970s to today. He relates the rise of drivers Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt, and is quite harsh on some of the sport's biggest names.

Some of Larosa's insights are genuinely surprising: one would never have thought that the Rod Osterlund team with which Earnhardt and Larosa won the 1980 Winston Cup title would have almost closed down even before the 1980 season began. Yet it was winnings from race purses that carried the team until sponsorship from businessmen Warner Hodgedon and Mike Curb came along in May of that year.

Larosa also gives a sharp insight into modern factory politics. When he and Earnhardt joined Richard Childress Racing in 1984, a top Chevrolet official told Larosa that they were, in essense, forbidden from winning the championship: "That's Junior Johnson's territory." Despite that,! RCR Enterprises won 25 races and two championships spanning 1984 through 1988.

But the politics continued. The 1988 season was a very frustrating one for RCR. For one thing, Pontiac, working with the Brodix company, had developed a hnew cylinder head that provided 25 extra horsepower, yet Chevrolet forbade its teams from using Pontiac/Brodix heads until late in the '88 season. "The bottom line was that they weren't going to let me use something that wasn't made by Chevrolet. "Instead of Chevrolet saying, 'We're getting beat, we need to go to work,' they were still saying, "Our parts are the best.'....Chevrolet was fat, dumb, and lazy, had no competition per se, until this other stuff came along." It is telling that, several years later, GM merged the racing programs of its divisions together under Chevrolet leadership and in effect destroyed non-Chevy GM programs. It helps explain the growing lack of wins by GM teams in Winston Cup today.

Larosa ! saves his greatest fire for crew chief Larry McReynolds. M! cReynolds had criticized Larosa and his engines in American Zoom, and Larosa gets even with a vengeance, detailing incidents of such jaw-dropping incompitence on the part of McReynolds that it is a wonder that the man has any kind of racing job.

Larosa is no less harsh on people he had to deal with in what turned out to be his last engine building job, with Darrell Waltrip's now-defunct team. His most stinging criticism is aimed at Waltrip himself. "Darrell and crew chiefs and Darrell and engine builders don't get along too well. Because it's never Darrell's fault. It's never him. It's ALWAYS someone else.....Darrell hated (crew chiefs and engine builders)....because Darrell has always been a follower, not a leader, not an innovative person. (Even as a driver in the 1970s and '80s) he was a follower, and you can't win races following what other people do."

The collapse of Waltrip's team came after he signed a sponsor that had already been bankrupt for man! y months. "But Darrell was susceptible to that sort of person, the people who blew smoke.....it's because deep down he doesn't have faith. He says he does, but he has never had faith in his own people. Instead, he's always belittled them."

Larosa delivers an indictment of modern racing: "Racing has turned into a commercial. It doesn't matter whether he wins anymore. All that matters is that he's a good spokesman for the sponsor. And Dale Earnhardt can deny it - they all can deny it - but the T-shirt sales and the souvenirs are more important than the race team. They'll say, 'We want to win.' Bull.....Where is the priority when you make $4 million racing and $40 million selling souvenirs?" True blooded racing people are "getting pushed to the side to make room for the b.s. people with computers.....they can take their computers....because that ain't racing like it used to be."

At Texas Motor Speedway in April of 1998, track presiden! t Eddie Gossage promised to sell T-shirts marked, "Shu! t Up And Race." Gossage got hammered for it. Reading this excellent book, one is hard pressed to disagree with him.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best racing books ever written, November 24, 2001

By 

Patten (Nashville, Tunisia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Lap: The Life and Times of NASCAR's Legendary Heroes, Updated Edition (Hardcover)

At first, I was hesitant to pick up this book, as Golenbock is not exactly one of the most popular names in NASCAR writing. His last work on NASCAR - American Zoom - was filled with glaring errors and misinformation about the history of the sport. However, after sitting and reading merely a few pages from The Last Lap (...), I could tell this book was much different. Golenbock tells the history of NASCAR from a driver's standpoint instead of merely describing races and race results. Each era of racing is related to a different driver. He also tells the stories of several lesser known drivers who happened to have lost their lives prematurely. If you are a racing fan, I recommend this book. If you don't like racing, you may get curious after reading about the escapades of Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly. It is my personal opinion that you do not have to be a fan of NASCAR to enjoy this book.