Fixin to Git

In the past twenty years, big-time stock-car racing has become Americas fastest growing spectator sport. Winston Cup races draw larger audiencesat the tracks and on televisionthan any other sport, and drivers like Dale Jarrett, Jeff Gordon, and Mark Martin have become cultural icons whose endorsements command millions. What accounts for NASCARs 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 Cups legendary venues: Daytona, Indianapolis, Darlington, Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, and Talladega. The Fixin to Git Road Tour resulted in this booknot just a travelogue of Wrights year at the races, but a fans 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 theres 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 grandstandsand in the bars, restaurants, parking lots, juke joints, motels, and campgrounds where race fans congregate. He conveys the rich, erotic sensory overloadthe sights, the sounds, the smells, the feelof weekends at the Winston Cup race tracks.