Since the 1980s big-time stock-car racing has become America's fastest growing spectator sport. Winston Cup races draw larger audiences - at the tracks and on television - than any other sport, and drivers like Dale Jarrett, Jeff Gordon, and Mark Martin have become cultural icons whose endorsements command millions. What accounts for NASCAR's surging popularity? For years a "closeted" NASCAR fan, Professor Jim Wright took advantage of a sabbatical in 1999 to attend stock-car races at seven of the Winston Cup's legendary venues: Daytona, Indianapolis, Darlington, Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, and Talladega. The "Fixin' to Git Road Tour" resulted in this book - not just a travelogue of Wright's year at the races, but a fan's valentine to the spectacle, the pageantry, and the subculture of Winston Cup racing Wright busts the myth that NASCAR is a Southern sport and takes on critics who claim that there's nothing to racing but "drive fast, turn left," revealing the skill, mental acuity, and physical stamina required by drivers and their crews.
Mostly, though, he captures the experience of loyal NASCAR fans like himself, describing the drama in the grandstands - and in the bars, restaurants, parking lots, juke joints, motels, and campgrounds where race fans congregate. He conveys the rich, erotic sensory overload - the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feel - of weekends at the Winston Cup race tracks.
Industry Reviews
"This book's personal impressions don't take you behind the pit wall--they take you into the stands, where the average folks watch the race. Wright combines the interests of the academic and the common race fan for an uncommon vision of NASCAR."--Scott Huler, author of A Little Bit Sideways: One Week inside a NASCAR Winston Cup Race Team "If you are a NASCAR fan, or if you just want to know what all the fuss is about, this book is for you... Fixin' to Git explains, as well as it can be explained, the attraction Americans have for stock-car racing... Wright puts stock-car racing squarely into the context of America's love affair with the automobile, covers the basics, explains its national attraction and wraps it all up into the one big subculture that has become America's fastest-growing sport... From sponsors to pit crews, from drivers to souvenir sellers, hardly any element in the spectacle of stock-car racing is left unexamined... [T]he fun of it all is laid out for readers to enjoy. If you are looking for a good book for that NASCAR-loving guy or gal on your Christmas list, this will be appreciated ... And yes, NASCAR fans do read!"--Harvey Jackson, The Anniston Star, Anniston, Alabama "Easily the most compelling look at Winston Cup ever."--Shawn Courchesne, The Hartford Courant (Connecticut) "[T]he crux of [this] unabashed study is that racing can be good fun. The finest chapters focus on the thrill of going 200 mph while negotiating turns on an increasingly slick, sloping ellipse." Publishers Weekly "This is the very best book to surface on auto racing in many years. Informative, entertaining, and eye-opening." Wes Lukowsky, Booklist "[A] wonderful book on stock car racing ..." Royal Ford, The Boston Globe
