This insightful, energetic history of NASCAR, the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing, will delight casual and hardcore fans, who have made yearly NASCAR events a $200-million-plus industry. Menzer (Carolina Panthers), a sports writer for the Winston-Salem Journal, details early stock-car racing from its birth in 1930s North Carolina, "where moonshine runners... took great pleasure in trying to outrun federal agents from the Internal Revenue Service." The second half divulges insider information since 1960, via anecdotes and interviews with such current NASCAR legends as the late Dale Earnhardt and past champions like Junior Johnson, whose career—"from moonshine runner to champion driver to successful car owner"—personifies NASCAR's evolution. But this is no puff piece. Through colorful interviews, the drivers reveal that "there was cheating going on from day one"; in the 1950s and '60s "there was a lot of drug use in racing"; and many drivers are still haphazard about safety standards. Most interesting, Menzer illuminates the story of Wendell Scott, the first African-American driver in the early 1960s, when "NASCAR was a white man's sport... and there was little or no sympathy for Scott when his NASCAR efforts met with resistance." This is an excellent, broad-ranging account of the fastest-growing sport in America. Agent, Shari Wenk.(July)
Forecast:With NASCAR's huge popularity and Fox-TV's billion-dollar contract starting in 2002 (on top of NBC's coverage), this should be a smash hit.
