One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation | 
 enlarge | Author: Liz Clarke
Publisher: Villard
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $12.47
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 57702
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0345499883
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.72
EAN: 9780345499882
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
From its raw beginnings on Southern dirt tracks, NASCAR smacked of a slightly depraved spectacle, as if nothing but trouble could come from the unbridled locomotion of a V8 engine. By the time NASCAR roared into the twenty-first century, it had grown into a billion-dollar sports and marketing colossus, its races attended by hundreds of thousands of fans on any given weekend from mid-February through mid-November, watched on television by the second-largest viewing audience in sports, and bankrolled by the marketing largesse of the Fortune 500’s elite.
One Helluva Ride, a full-throttle account of the rise and reign of NASCAR nation, is award-winning motorsports reporter Liz Clarke’s chronicle of how stock car racing exploded from regional obsession to national phenomenon. In covering the sport for more than fifteen years, Clarke has developed a strong rapport with NASCAR’s drivers, team owners, and hard-core fans. Through her reporting and analysis, we get to know the public and private sides of NASCAR’s most iconic figures, including seven-time champion Richard Petty, who set the standard for treating fans with respect, and the late Dale Earnhardt, whose brazen, bullying tactics wreaked havoc on the track, but whose heart was as big as Daytona’s infield.
The sports world stopped in its tracks the day Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Some feared that NASCAR’s soul would die with him. But it has raced on, steered by visionary promoters, the all-controlling France family (who founded the sport), and, above all, the next generation of drivers to stir fans’ passions: Dale Earnhardt, Jr., son of the NASCAR legend and now, like his father before him, the circuit’s most popular driver; Jeff Gordon, the beloved but oft-maligned outsider, bred from the cradle to be NASCAR’s winningest modern champion; and Kasey Kahne, a reluctant heartthrob whose confidence derives entirely from an accelerator pedal. Clarke also brings us inside NASCAR’s most triumphant and tragic dynasties: the Pettys, the Earnhardts, and the Allisons–and reveals how faith, family, and a deep-seated love of their sport helps them cope with grief and loss.
Clarke shows NASCAR to be at a crossroads. In pursuit of a broader audience, NASCAR has severed its sponsorship ties to Big Tobacco, abandoned racetracks in small markets in favor of speedways near glitzy major cities, and welcomed Japan’s Toyota into a sport traditionally restricted to American-made sedans. As NASCAR races toward mass appeal, some suggest it is leaving its roots behind. To others, it is boldly extending its reach from the Southern workingman to every man, woman, and child in the world.
Whether you’re one of the die-hard NASCAR faithful or just a casual follower, nobody brings you closer to the sport and business of big-time stock car racing than Liz Clarke. This book, like the phenomenon it profiles, really is One Helluva Ride.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
One Helluva NASCAR Book February 12, 2008
Edward Shaw (Houston, Texas)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
A winning story, well told February 27, 2008
Kathleen McClain (Charlotte, NC)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
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 cliches 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.
[...]
Fast-paced and fun February 27, 2008
J. Donald (Lexington, NC)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Understanding NASCAR February 14, 2008
Neil From Rockville
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
One Helluva Read February 24, 2008
Holly Cara Price (New York, NY)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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