Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France

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Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France

In this history of the stock car racing circuit known as NASCAR, Daniel Pierce offers a revealing new look at the sport from its postwar beginnings on Daytona Beach and Piedmont dirt tracks through the early 1970s when the sport spread beyond its southern roots and gained national recognition. Following NASCAR founder Big Bill France from his start as a mechanic, Real NASCAR details the sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. Pierce not only confirms the popular notion of NASCAR's origins in bootlegging, but also establishes beyond a doubt the close ties between organized racing and the illegal liquor industry, a story that readers will find both fascinating and controversial.

Drawing on the memories of a variety of participants--including highly colorful characters like Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, Gober Sosebee, Smokey Yunick, Bunky Knudsen, Humpy Wheeler, Bobby Isaac, Junior Johnson, and Big Bill France himself--Real NASCAR shows how the reputation for wildness of these racers-by-day and bootleggers-by-night drew throngs of spectators to the tracks in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. They came to watch their heroes maneuver ordinary automobiles at incredible speed, beating and banging on each other, wrecking spectacularly, and fighting out their differences in the infield.

Although France faced many challenges--including a fickle Detroit that often seemed unsure of its support for the sport, safety issues that killed star drivers and threatened its very existence, and drivers who twice tried to unionize to gain a bigger piece of the NASCAR pie--by the early 1970s France and his allies had laid a firm foundation for what has become today a billion-dollar industry and arguably the largest spectator sport in America.

Country	USA
Author	Daniel S. Pierce
Binding	Hardcover
Brand	Brand: The University of North Carolina Press
EAN	9780807833841
Edition	1st
Feature	Used Book in Good Condition
ISBN	0807833843
Label	The University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer	The University of North Carolina Press
MPN	9780807833841
NumberOfItems	1
NumberOfPages	360
PartNumber	9780807833841
PublicationDate	2010-04-01
Publisher	The University of North Carolina Press
Studio	The University of North Carolina Press
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France

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