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
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
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
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
