Library Notes


Lynn Denison

January 22, 2013



Now is the time when NASCAR fans are becoming excited about the beginning of a new season. The NASCAR season is the longest running season of any sport in the United States, usually beginning in February and lasting through November. One of our new books at Rowan Public Library is NASCAR Nation, How Racing’s Values Mirror the Nation’s, by Chris Myers. To quote the author, “America is the greatest country on earth. . . . If cars are for most Americans, then NASCAR is also for most Americans. Baseball is American’s pastime and football is American’s passion, but NASCAR is its roots . . . It’s family time and it’s NASCAR time. NASCAR has millions of steadfast fans.”

In NASCAR Nation, longtime Fox Sports broadcaster and NASCAR prerace show host, Chris Myers, makes the case for what makes racing the embodiment of the best that makes America great. As you read this book you’ll enjoy learning about Chris’ experience of going from a NASCAR outsider approximately ten years ago to a part of the inner circle in the close knit NASCAR community that he now calls home. It is a light and easy read and one recommended for those who are new to NASCAR as well as for those who can’t remember when NASCAR wasn’t a big part of their lives.

NASCAR is the highest class of stock car auto racing in the United States. “Stock car” means, in the original sense of the term, an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration. Later the term stock car came to mean any production-based automobile used in racing. This term is used to differentiate such a car from a race car, a special, custom-built car designed only for racing purposes. Today most American stock cars may superficially resemble standard American family sedans, but are in fact purpose-built racing machines built to a strict set of regulations.

For those new and long time racing fans the library has a plethora of books as well as DVDS’s on the subject. One of the DVD’s is Red Dirt Rising, a film that “chronicles the origins of stock car racing during the Fightin’ Forties and explores the origins of what has become one of the most lucrative sporting organizations in the world.” We also have Petty Blue, the story of the Petty family, known as “NASCAR’s royal family of racing;” Together: the Hendrick Motorsports Story; The Ride of Their Lives, and many other NASCAR related DVD’s.

Some of the books we have include In the Blink of the Eye: Dale, Daytona, and the Day that Changed Everything, by Michael Waltrip and Ellis Henican; Growing Up NASCAR: Racing’s Most Outrageous Promoter Tells All, by Humpy Wheeler & Peter Golenbock ; He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back, by Mark Bechtel; Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay and Big Bill France, by Daniel S. Pierce; and a beautiful book, NASCAR Then & Now by Ben White with many photographs by Nigel Kinrade.

These are just a few of the offerings we have available. Please stop by Rowan Public Library soon to explore these and other materials to increase your knowledge of NASCAR and help you enjoy this exciting racing season even more.