Now on bookshelves
The book jacket copy practically hyperventilates: "Driving with the Devil uncovers for the first time the true story behind NASCAR's distant, moonshine-fueled origins ..."
NASCAR and ... moonshiners?! NO WAY!
That was my initial reaction, anyway. And then I flipped to the back of the book. An index. A bibliography. Freakin' footnotes. And the promotional stuff hints as more - namely, that this book fleshes out the relationship between Bill France (heard of him, right?) and Ray Parks of Georgia (nope, not even a vague recollection).
I've spent longer on this post than the book itself at this point, but my gut reaction is that this book has promise. About time someone dug into the history with a little actual scholarship.
The book is Driving with the Devil. The author, Neal Thompson, is a journalist who teaches at UNC-Ashville. (I don't know his work.)