NASCAR vs. Football: Which Sport Is More Important to the South?

Stories of Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall hauling liquor from Dawsonville, Georgia, to Atlanta one night and winning races at Lakewood Speedway the next day in the same car; of Fonty Flock winning the Southern 500 at Darlington Speedway wearing Bermuda shorts and argyle socks; of his brother Tim racing with a monkey- named Jocko Flocko-in his racecar; of unexpectedly discovering female racers Sara Christian, Louise Smith, and Ethel Mobley in NASC AR's top division in the late 1940s and early '50s; of Curtis Turner doing any number of outlandish things, including landing his airplane on an Easley, South Carolina, street on a Sunday morning so a buddy could go to his house to re-supply their depleted stock of liquor; of Buck Baker discovering that the beer he had poured into a douchebag to sip on during a race had turned to pure suds after a few laps; of Richard Petty winning seventeen races in a row; of tire-iron fights, wild parties, and any number of like antics. [...]began a journey that has taken me to tracks large and small all over the region, to the homes and offices of numerous NASC AR legends, led to an even deeper appreciation of the sport's essential southernness and of its historical significance, and resulted in the writing and publication of a book, Real NASCAR: [...]the authors wrote, "to the tens of thousands of people who pack stadiums large and small every Friday night in the fall, it . . . always will be." Because "it goes beyond sport.