By The Commish

Some time ago, I was asked for recommendations for books to read about NASCAR. In the interest of helping you out with your holiday shopping lists, here’s a basic— and very personal— list of books that I recommend for NASCAR fans. Some of them feature Jeff Gordon and some do not; so be warned!

Book for Beginners: Hands-down, it’s Mark Martin's NASCAR for Dummies, 2nd edition. If you know the for Dummies® formula, you’ll know what to expect here. Aa basic breakdown of the sport, the cars, the rules, and some of the drivers. Ghostwriter Beth Tuschak does a great job, but there are places where the wry Martin voice really comes through and some of the advice (for first time race-attendees, or how to watch races on tv without going bananas) is both excellent and unexpected.

Statistics: It used to be necessary to own one of Greg Fielden and Peter Golenbock's books, either The Stock-Car Racing Encyclopedia or The NASCAR Encyclopedia. They're still wonderful books, as is Fielden's three-volume classic, Forty Years of Stock-Car Racing. But today, there’s a great online source, www.racing-reference.com, which provides most of the stats any casual fan would like. Still, don't pass up Fielden and Golenbock if you find them.

Insights into the Sport: To understand NASCAR, you have to understand what goes on behind the scenes, and I'd recommend four books. First is Tom Jensen's Cheating (2nd ed.), which details the ongoing battles between teams and the sport's ruling body to balance innovation with fair competition. Reading about Gary Nelson, later NASCAR's chief sheriff, as a crew chief, reminds you why banks hire former bank robbers as security chiefs. And Jensen also tells you a great deal about one of the greatest innovators of all time in racing, Henry 'Smokey' Yunick, but to really appreciate Smokey, you should read his own book, Best Damn Garage in Town. Casual fans can make do with the one-volume condensed version, but real racing geeks will want the three-volume set. Interspersed between stories of battles royal with NASCAR and a very colorful and occasionally factual autobiography is a great deal of information about the evolution of the Chevy small-block engine, aerodynamics, and how to drive a race car whose gas tank has been removed and confiscated. The third book is David Poole's Race with Destiny, which ostensibly chronicles the 1992 season and Alan Kulwicki's championship, but which actually is a stunning tribute to the level of competition NASCAR creates. And finally, throw in G. Wayne Miller's Men and Speed (2nd ed.), which follows Roush Racing through the 2001 season and is the best (to date) investigation of how a multicar team works, or doesn't work. Plus, it features some classic Kurt Busch tantrums.

The Business: Sometimes when outsiders look at the sport, they provide perspectives that are fresh, insightful, and valuable. Three books I’d put in this category are Shaun Assael's Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour, which follows three struggling teams through the 1996 season with unprecedented access to the struggles to find and maintain sponsorship; Joe Menzer's The Wildest Ride, an unofficial history of NASCAR that focuses on how the France family invented, and then repeatedly reinvented the sport; and a personal favorite, Jim Wright's Fixin' to Git, written by a cultural sociologist who is also a diehard race fan. This is the book I recommend to friends who don't understand why I love NASCAR. It's beautifully written as well as extremely intelligent.

Current Driver Biography: I haven't read Kenny Schrader’s book yet since Santa has strictly enjoined me not to buy it before Christmas, but of all the current driver biographies out there, I would pick Driver #8 by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jade Gurss. In many ways, this is the book that made the Junior phenomenon, but what makes it stand out is that nobody apparently told Junior to be politically correct, and Gurss does an excellent job of keeping that honesty in the authorial voice. The result is a very candid look at the challenges of a first-year driver who was expected to win from the get-go, bore the weight of a famous name and family, and whose psyche, team, and talent at times didn't seem to meet expectations. Between the stories of the spicy cheese dip and the broken axle, you get a very human picture of what racing does to its competitors and their emotions. After you've read it, books like Jeff Gordon's Racing Back to the Front and Tony Stewart's True Speed: My Racing Life are still interesting but far less personal and compelling.

Blast from the Past: The last few years have seen solid biographies of Curtis Tuner (Robert Edelstein's Full Throttle), Fireball Roberts (Godwin Kelly's Fireball), and Tim Richmond (David Poole's Tim Richmond), but all of those take a back seat to Peter Golenbock's American Zoom, which allows nearly 30 NASCAR pioneers to tell their stories in their own words. Every serious writer about NASCAR has this book on his or her shelf. It's wonderful and well worth searching out.

Book by a Reporter: Many race fans find the coverage by both Ed Hinton and Monte Dutton to be opinionated and occasionally irritating. But there's no doubt that they provide some of the finest coverage our sport receives. Hinton has been following racing for over 30 years and it shows, both in his intimacy with many of the stars of the sport and his familiarity with detail. Check out his book Daytona: From the Birth of Speed to the Death of the Man in Black, which focuses on racing at one particular track (as well as Hinton's relationships with the racers who competed there, especially Dale Earnhardt). And Dutton's edge is well-demonstrated in his Postcards from Pit Road, a compendium of his columns from the 2002 season along with previously unpublished additions. Both writers call a spade a spade, talk honestly about the difficulties of covering the sport, and aren't afraid to blast the NASCAR establishment when it’s called for, which is a welcome change from the usual sycophants and guys who write from the press releases.

Photo Book: There are a lot of things to be said for the new collection Speed, Guts, and Glory by Joe Garner with Jeff Gordon, and Hendrick Motorsports fans will love the photos in UMI's Twenty Years of Hendrick Motorsports, but my personal favorite in this collection is George Tiedemann's Trading Paint: Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon, which has almost 175 pages of photos of the two drivers in friendship and rivalry. Tiedemann is one of the finest photographers of the sport, and the quality shows here.

Remember, these are my favorites. Some of you will obviously have others. Discuss among yourselves and happy reading.

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