Fixin' to Git: One Fan's Love Affair with NASCAR's Winston Cup

By Jim Wright and James D. Wright

Book Overview

In the past twenty years, 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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822329263
• ISBN13: 9780822329268
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Best book on NASCAR I've read

I've read a lot of books on NASCAR, and this is the one I'd recommend to anyone to whom I wanted to communicate my love of the sport. Wright's perspective on NASCAR is unlike any other -he is erudite and witty and down-to-earth and communicates a true connoisseur's perspective. Highly recommended.

Absolutely fascinating!

Whether you're a stock car fan or not, this is fascinating and hilarious. What a sport, what a history, what a culture. NASCAR is something different. Couldn't possibly have learned or enjoyed more.

Review by a non-NASCAR reader

I had no knowledge or affinity towards NASCAR racing before reading this book. The author makes the subject interesting to those of us who don't know the drivers, the car racing teams, the tracks or anything else about NASCAR. It is a funny and at times hilarious read of one man's love with racing and the Winston Cup. While not at all "high browed", one begins to understand the sociological context of this fast growing sport. I recommend this book the fan, nonfan and the curious.

A GREAT book for any NASCAR race-fan!

This book was a nice change from the typical "behind the scenes" books you usually find about Nascar. The author tells it like it is from a fan's point of view. He describes his trips to several different NASCAR events. His stories are amusing, and entertaining, and his information is accurate. I used this book to show a friend of mine why I go to so many races and why I am such a big NASCAR fan. Next thing you know, she was begging me to take her to Rockingham,NC. She's a NASCAR fan now too, so I guess that says something for the book. I highly recommend it to any true NASCAR fan or anyone who doesn't understand why NASCAR is America's fastest growing sport. Read "Fixin' to git" and just maybe you'll become a fan too......