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One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation

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Take a good look at Liz Clarke's new book, One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation. You don't have to know auto racing to relate to NASCAR's populist, dirt-track roots, its self-made heroes and multibillion-dollar marketing revolution. If you're already a fan, you'll find fresh insights and up-close portraits of the sport's most compelling personalities. If you're on the fence, climb over: Follow the money, meet the stars, get inside the rivalries and tragedies that pull them together and push them apart.

Clarke knows sports on the world stage. She has covered the NFL, the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Olympics from Sydney to Salt Lake to Athens and the Italian Alps. In 15 years of writing for the Charlotte Observer, the Dallas Morning News, USA Today and, now, the Washington Post, she has also become an authority on NASCAR, a truly American sports phenomenon.

If you can't get past comparing strawberries and cream at Wimbledon's Centre Court to chicken bones at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, you're missing a great story. Clarke's colleague Michael Wilbon, the Post columnist and co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, says it well: "You can't pretend to have a full-scale discussion of sports anymore without understanding NASCAR."

Clarke is an especially observant guide. As a reporter, she didn't choose to write about NASCAR; she knew almost nothing about racing when she was sent to cover her first speedway practice in Charlotte in 1991. As she got to know the drivers, she found them more accessible and interesting than many of the arrogant athletes in pro sports. It was clear that the drivers' personalities, not their 3,400-pound cars, were the sport's real drawing cards.

NASCAR has outgrown clichés about stock car racing and its tens of millions of die-hard fans. Madison Avenue's embrace is hastening change. The small Southern tracks that launched the sport are closing, with new speedways popping up in southern California, Las Vegas, Chicago and Kansas City. International drivers, including Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya and Scotland's Dario Franchitti, are pulling into NASCAR garages.

In One Helluva Ride, Clarke charts NASCAR's rise with energy and expertise. The book profits tremendously from the trust and respect she earned from such racing icons as Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt. The big picture is clear, but details set the book apart. Readers learn the secret of Petty's elaborate autograph, start a day at Earnhardt's farm with a Sundrop soda and a sausage biscuit, watch his fatal crash from the press box at Daytona in 2001.

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For either a veteran fan or a newbie, there is a ton of information and no small amount of local color and opinion in One Helluva Ride. This "Back to Basics" year for NASCAR is the perfect time to check out this very informative and roots respecting book by Liz Clarke.

It is clear from her reporting she has developed strong and trusting relationships with a range of drivers, owners and mechanics, from the pioneers and early heroes to today's mega stars of this growing and changing sport. (The foreword is written by Richard Petty.) The book's ambitious trajectory is nicely broken down into insightful biographical sketches and fact filled discussions of major changes in the sport's history.

She navigates the shoal waters of NASCAR's founding, drivers schooled in dirt road high speed tactics hauling loads of moonshine liquor, to the high water marks of today's sport peopled with MBAs and image consultants teaching lads who were driving on dirt tracks in the mid west, how to deal with a stage second only to the NFL in television coverage.

This is a good read.

With equal parts sports history, business strategy and social commentary, Clarke tracks the rise of NASCAR by focusing on the personalities that made (and continue to make) the sport grow.

If you're looking for a book that recaps significant races or focuses on racing strategy, this isn't it. However, if you want to walk away with the feeling that you've spent an afternoon on Richard Petty's front porch chatting over a few Cheerwines, then you'll thoroughly enjoy this book. Clarke has clearly invested much of herself in NASCAR and the sport has repaid the debt with the gift of its personalities which Clarke presents here as very few could do.

While Clarke clearly loves the sport, she does not sugarcoat some of NASCAR's historic flaws such as the reluctance to quickly address safety issues. In the end, this fast-paced account will leave you with some great insight and knowledge that will serve you as well in Hueytown, Alabama as it will on Madison Avenue.

Let me say at the outset that I knew next to nothing about NASCAR prior to reading this book. I've never watched a race on TV for more than a few minutes; I've never attended a race in person. With that said, I couldn't stop reading "One Helluva Ride." It's a terrific read and a great American story that reads like a novel, as all the best nonfiction should.

Author Liz Clarke has covered NASCAR for many years for newspapers such as the Charlotte Observer, USA Today, and, currently, the Washington Post. She knows her subject - really, really well. And she can turn a phrase so that within a few pages you're completely sucked in and fascinated by people you never even heard of yesterday.

The story of NASCAR is the American dream come to life. As Clarke writes, 'from stock-car racing's beginning, there was something illicit about it - like early rock `n' roll - that suggested a certain depravity . . . it was a sport at the fringe of the rules.' From the sport's beginning with dirt tracks in the deep south where souped up cars raced far away from the prying eyes of local law enforcement and drivers tinkered on their own sedans to compete, to the latter days of multi-million dollar speedways and primetime racing on television, to the sea change as the NASCAR's original sponsor, cigarette maker RJ Reynolds, steps aside to make way for more family-friendly advertising and an even wider audience on the world stage. You can see how quickly this all took place from a look at the list of all-time NASCAR champions and their winnings in the back of the book - Red Byron in 1949 pocketed $5800; Jimmie Johnson in 2007 took home over $15 million.

The drama - the pathos - all here. And the cast of characters are sharply drawn, from Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator (who, 'with every lap,' writes Clarke, `evened the score for the guy who was invisible to society...who cleans the gutters, jackhammers the pavement, and services the air conditioner without ever making eye contact') - to multi-millionaire Junior Johnson, who in his mid-70's still cooks his own breakfast every weekday morning - to the visionary and imposing Big Bill France (whose family actually owns NASCAR, lock, stock-car and barrel) - to Tim Flock (who ran 9 NASCAR races in the early 50's accompanied by a rhesus monkey who waved to fans from the car's window outfitted in a racing uniform and helmet) - to Richard Petty (The King) who learned how to sign autographs without using his wrist so his arm wouldn't tire out as much) - to Jeff Gordon ('the first NASCAR driver to look like a dream date') - to a host of Miss Winston's cozying up to the champions for a kiss and product placement in Victory Lane - and many, many more.

The moments when Clarke relates her own experiences covering this circus cavalcade make the read even more interesting. `My first mistake was wearing a dress,' she says of the first time she enters the NASCAR garage as a young reporter in Charlotte, North Carolina, knowing nearly nothing about stock-car racing. Riding shotgun with a racecar driver at nearly top speed to see exactly what it was like to perform this sport she wrote about as an observer. Clarke in a remote Italian village covering the 2006 Winter Olympics, making a bet with a colleague that she'd be able to find a place to watch the Daytona 500 live on TV - and winning. Her agonizing moments in the press box between the time of Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash to the official announcement of his death - a moment that changed the sport irrevocably, forever.

Clarke writes, 'NASCAR was unlike other sports in so many obvious ways...but it differed in other respects, too. It wasn't a sport to the drivers and mechanics who worked so hard. It was an all-consuming calling, with the joy and sorrow of life itself.' And that's what makes this well-written book so appealing. Because it's about people who are living life hard and taking it to the limit. And, due to the nature of the sport, death is always as close as the next turn of the wheel, which makes life stand out in vibrant relief.

Anyone who reads the Washington Post's Sports section will be familiar with Liz Clarke's excellent insigt into a myriad of sports from Tennis to NASCAR. She brings a great writing style to a sport that will make new and old fans of NASCAR come away with a better understanding and enjoyment of the sport. A must read for every sports fan whether they be a casual observer or gear head. She makes left turns exciting and enjoyable to read about.

Liz Clark's outstanding perspective of events and characters that helped shaped NASCAR is one of the best I have seen. Her mix of researched history, as well as personal anecdotes, is a must-read for hard-line NASCAR fans, as well as those folks who think NASCAR racing is just a bunch of cars going around in circles. Clark cuts to the core of NASCAR's popularity...which is people....working-class people who share a sense of excitement and comraderie in pulling for their favorite driver and team. She also shares poignant memories of what it was like to interview NASCAR superstars Dale Earnhardt, Sr., Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and many others. NASCAR's history is much more than names, dates and places.
Clark gives you glimpses of the sport you won't find anywhere else.

This book is a rare combination of entertainment and information woven into a fast-paced narrative. The author is an experienced newspaper sportswriter, and that background gives her writing a pace and focus that perfectly fits the subject matter.

NASCAR's history is complicated; it is unique in American sports because it is wholly owned by a single family, the Frances. The actual racers are, in effect, independent contractors who perform day labor at the various racetracks that the France family franchises. The author makes all of this clear in one of the best analyses of the business of car racing that has ever been written.

At the same time, she explores the background of NASCAR's original stars, the good 'ole boys from the South, many of whom souped up cars to haul moonshine liquor during the Prohibition era. As the sport matured into the business it is today-- mostly because the France family made it do so-- those drivers were replaced by Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and the like. Finally, today, the drivers are not only skilled professionals but corporate spokesmen as well. This could have been boring material, but the author's news writing skills turns it into an exciting narrative.

This is an excellent look into the history of NASCAR and into the current operations of the sport. It contains a wealth of material that the real fans will find valuable, and it clearly explains the sport for the casual viewer. I recommend it highly.

I had high expectations for this and was not let down at all. GREAT read

If you'd like to learn about the history of racing but want it on a more personal level, this is the book for you to read.

Love the book, gives just enough history of the sport and enough current information mixed in with fun stories about the past and present drivers.