Wide Open: Days And Nights On The Nascar Tour

by Shaun Assael

It's a wild carnival that travels across the country, selling speed as the salvation for all that ails. It's a world of split-second life-or-death decisions, where huge egos clash on the track, and where old country ways are disappearing into a mega-money hustle of big-city sports. It's the fastest growing sport in America, spawning idols like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt. It is NASCAR Winston Cup Tour. . . .

Now ESPN Magazine writer Shaun Assael takes us behind the scenes, into the pits and onto the tracks, chronicling the days and nights of Americas fastest soap opera. Secrets don't keep long, he writes, but they don't have to. Everything changes fast in the speed world.

Wide Open looks at one full year on the NASCAR circuit as it has never been examined before. This extraordinary book examines the life, the loves, the blood feuds of the stars, the grunts, the drivers, the mechanics, the wives, the girlfriends, the moneymen--everyone and anyone who makes things happen.

Assael chronicles the travels of three particular racers--Bobby Hamilton, Dave Marcis, and Brett Bodine--as they struggle through a thirty-one-race season. He takes us on the political campaign trail with Richard Petty, into Flossie Johnson's kitchen where she tells what it was like to live with and be left by the legendary Junior Johnson, and into the fascinating and heartbreaking realm of Bobby Allison's broken dreams.

Wide Open is a funny, tragic, dramatic journey inside a world that has long been closed.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

335 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Dave Neumann · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting glimpse into the world of Nascar through the eyes of several different people. Would be a great read for someone who is new to the sport and wanted to learn more about the ins and outs of Nascar

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in 2001 when I was just getting into (and I mean REALLY really getting into) NASCAR. I enjoyed it. At that time, I think I ate, slept, and breathed stock car racing. When I get obsessed, I can really get obsessed!

(If you're wondering, my NASCAR obsession has been tamed the last few years, but I can see I missed a really good season. May take it back up next year.)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love this book

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had read this back when it first came out it might have been a better book. If you want to learn about Nascar it is the book to read you can learn a lot from it.