Little Bit Sideways: One Week Inside a Nascar Winston Cup Race Team [Paperback]

Scott Huler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 1999

A Little Bit Sideways Scott Huler. Subtitled: One Week Inside a NASCAR Winston Cup Race Team. This rambunctious tour takes you into thedriver¦s seat, the cocktail parties, the race shop, the broadcast booth, and beyond, capturing the essence of NASCAR. Discover how minute changes behind the scenes of a NASCAR racing team directly affect the car¦s performance on race day. This insider¦s view explores the inner workings of a NASCAR race team by covering the events and discussing how the crew chief, driver, and mechanics interact. Testing, design, set up, tires, sponsorship, ownership, technical inspections, qualifying and regulations are broken down to offer a look behind the scenes of today's NASCAR race week day by day.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It may be the best presentation of racing I've come across in over 50 years of involvement." -- Bob Latford, The Inside Line Newsletter

From the Publisher

At some point in the last 24 months, the publishing industry's big dogs finally discovered NASCAR. Though dozens of books about stock car racing have been published, none have presented it in a manner that makes the average reader say, "NOW I get it. NOW I see what all the fuss is about." Scott Huler goes over the wall and does for NASCAR what Roger Angell does for baseball; what David Foster Wallace has done for professional tennis, luxury cruises and state fairs; what Lewis Thomas did for ecology.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks; First edition (March 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760304556
• ISBN-13: 978-0760304556
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,730,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As a writer for newspapers, magazines, and radio programs Scott Huler has addressed everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing. His books range equally widely -- from "On Being Brown," about the relationship between his hometown NFL Cleveland Browns and their rabid fans to "No-Man's Lands," about a journey retracing the path of Homer's Odysseus. Born in Cleveland in 1959, Huler has lived all over the country and in England. His work has appeared in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and International Herald Tribune and in magazines like Backpacker and Fortune. His radio work has been heard nationally on such shows as "All Things Considered," "Marketplace," and "Splendid Table" and internationally on the Voice of America's "VOA News Now." He lives in Raleigh, N.C., with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two boys.

You can learn more about him by visiting his website at http://www.scotthuler.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for fan and non fan, alike, December 15, 1999

By 

Henry Vogel "Storyteller" (Raleigh, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Bit Sideways: One Week Inside a Nascar Winston Cup Race Team (Paperback)

I lived in the South all my life, always aware of NASCAR, watching races every now and then. Even so, I haven't tuned into to a NASCAR race in probably 25 years. Because of this book, I will when the next season starts.

One can truly begin to understand the mystique of NASCAR after reading A Little Bit Sideways. Scott Huler's obvious love for the material really shines through. His writing transforms what, in lesser hands, could have been a dry and boring recitation of minute details into an interesting and compelling human interest story.

Read it. You won't be disappointed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the bunch!, September 28, 2000

By 

"johnsetear" (Charlottesville, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Bit Sideways: One Week Inside a Nascar Winston Cup Race Team (Paperback)

If you want to read one book about NASCAR, I recommend this one. Not because it's a hand-holding introduction, but because it's the best. It just does such a great job describing so many aspects of NASCAR. The organizing principle of the book is to examine a week in the life of Kenny Wallace's Square D Racing Team, but along the way, the author looks at NASCAR's personalities, history, technology, tracks, and fans. Huler has a real flair for description, and a genuine but not fawning affection for the sport.

I've also read Shaun Assael's "Wide Open" and Paul Hemphill's "Wheels," which are similar in many ways but to my mind are both inferior. Assael's book seemed flat compared to Huler's, though fans of Dave Marcis and Bobby Hamilton may enjoy the coverage that those drivers receive in "Wide Open." Hemphill's book spent a lot of time on a thesis that I soon found repetitively handled: NASCAR was once the province of the Southern working man but is now corporate entertainment. Both Assael and Hemphill follow NASCAR for a whole season and seem to get bored with it. Huler stays focused on a shorter timespan to much better effect.

I've read some more technical approaches to NASCAR as well, and found that Huler almost always snuck the information in those books into "A Little Bit Sideways."

Although I find this the best introduction to NASCAR because it's so engaging to read and so comprehensive in the bargain, those who are interested in learning more about NASCAR might also try "NASCAR for Dummies" by Mark "Awesome!" Martin and Juliet Macur. That book lacks Huler's style and story-line, but it does have a lot of interesting information about NASCAR, including some tidbits on strategy and technology that I haven't seen elsewhere.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great book for all die-hard Nascar fans!, August 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Little Bit Sideways: One Week Inside a Nascar Winston Cup Race Team (Paperback)

I loved this book! It taught me a lot about what goes on in one week of a racing team.I always respect what the drivers have to do-but I also gained a new respect for the hard working pit crew!This is a must have book for Nascar fans!