One Helluva Ride link:
One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation

Note: Clarke will be signing copies of One Helluva Ride from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m.-noon on Sunday inside the O. Bruton Smith building at Speedway World, the BMS gift shop.

BTS: What is your background as a reporter, and how did you start covering NASCAR?

LC: I’ve been a newspaper reporter for 21 years. And I started as a news reporter, actually, at the Raleigh News & Observer, covering higher education. I switched to sports in 1990, when I was working at the Charlotte Observer, and that job was mainly to cover Charlotte’s quest to get an NFL expansion team, which is very much a politics type of thing. The Observer was specifically looking for someone with a news background to come in and cover Charlotte’s quest for this team, which seemed really preposterous at the outset, but by 1990 it looked credible. It had gotten the NBA Hornets in the mid- to late-80’s, so that was the first really shocking development for Charlotte’s emergence. They were really trying to sort of be like Atlanta in a lot of ways.

BTS: What did you think about NASCAR when you started covering it?

LC: What I presumed I knew was sort of wrong. And I tried to confess that all at the outset [of the book] in the introduction. It was not an assignment of a job I felt prepared for. Just like if you went to work at the Lexington [Ky.] paper, you’d learn about horses.
It became something that I thought was really fascinating to cover, sort of part circus, part county fair, incredibly accessible people, really plain-spoken and down to Earth without the airs and pretenses of so many stick-and-ball athletes.
Five or six years later, I had a chance to go to the Dallas Morning News, to cover it full-time. They hadn’t had a full-time racing reporter. The track that is now Texas Motor Speedway was just under construction, so it was kind of like as NASCAR grew, the opportunity to cover the sport grew, and I saw that as a chance to move to a bigger paper, which I was interested in doing. And I went from sort of being a [general assignment] sports person, who always thought I’d go back to news, to being a full-time racing reporter, which, again, was something I’d never plotted or planned, but it was a real interesting time to cover the sport. And then from there I went to USA Today, also as a racing writer. And as I step away from it, I’ve covered NASCAR off and on for 17 years, for four different papers, and in that window of time—‘91 to now—just saw the sport change and grow so much that it was just … I just couldn’t believe the rate of change.

BTS: What do you think best symbolized NASCAR’s move from a fringe sport to a sport that now competes with MLB, the NFL and the NHL in terms of awareness and popularity?

LC: There were probably a couple of occasions. The first one, the really seismic one I guess, was that first race that NASCAR ran at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first time they were allowed to bring the stock cars to Indy, so that was in 1994. In that time, Indy Car racing, or open-wheel racing, was really the elite dominant form of motor sports in America, and NASCAR still had this regional air, and almost a stepchild sense. And that really was kind of its coming-out party. And the fact that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway let the stock cars come kind of gave it this air of legitimacy, the stamp of approval. And even up until that race day, there was still some question in people’s minds how the fans would react. The real, hardcore, heartland open-wheel fans, would they boo and hiss? Sort of like what some people wonder what’s going to happen when Toyota finally wins a race. Are we going to see this backlash? And it still wasn’t sure if the fans would embrace them, even though the track had approved it. And they were just greeted with open arms, and that was really the first time to me—and I think for a lot of people in the industry, too—that, ‘Wow, this really isn’t confined to the South.’ This has a foothold in the most-hallowed ground in motor sports.

The whole emergence of Jeff Gordon, as the new face of NASCAR. And he sort of toppled Earnhardt from the perch. And I would put this almost right on the heels of that first Brickyard. In ‘95-96, when Jeff won the championships back-to-back, and he was doing mainstream commercials. Until then, if you ever saw a NASCAR driver on TV, it was the regional product—Goody’s headache powder or RC cola or Sundrop soda—things that were identified with the South. But Jeff was attracting Madison Ave. and its agents, and he was doing ads for Pepsi or Coke—now it’s like a big deal in the world of NASCAR [which one he chooses]. The fact that he was a Californian who had no discernible accent—you couldn’t even listen to him and tell where he was from. Very telegenic. He spoke well, he looked great, he looked clean [laughs]. He really fit the Fortune 500, corporate profile. And that’s really significant.

BTS: What about learning the details of racing and cars? Restrictor plates, drafting …

LC: I’m not from a racing family. But I guess because I come from a news background into sports, I always really … had this rigid fear of embarrassing myself or the paper. So, no matter what the sport was, I always tried to never be afraid to ask a question. Just the basics tenets of reporting. And I found, more so in NASCAR than any other sport I’ve covered, there is always someone who is happy to explain —it may not be the driver; sometimes it is the driver; sometimes it might be the crew chief; it might be the tire specialist; it might be an engineer with Goodyear; it might be an engineer with General Motors. In the way that NHL players love to explain and talk about hockey, because they love that you love it, too. They want you … they’re really of the mind that ‘We’re selling the sport. We want fans to come.’ Instead of looking at fans and the media as a giant inconvenience. It’s one of those sports that is always reaching out. And not like I understood the sport immediately. It was on a need-to-know basis. Where, something that had to do with a restrictor plate [laughs], I would really try hard to get that. And … whatever was the issue of the day. And I would ask a lot of questions, and I was lucky enough to find people who would help me work through it.

I didn’t know anything about it, and what I thought I knew was wrong. I thought Charlotte Motor Speedway was a dirt track. I didn’t know. And I thought the athletes were going to be very crude and hard to deal with—the drivers; I probably didn’t even call them athletes then—and that they were the sort of people who didn’t have a lot of options in life; all they could do was drive. All of it I found totally wrong. [The drivers] were incredibly human and familiar and hard-working and recognized hard work in other people. And so I found it delightful to cover. And the first thing you respond to is everything visceral. The smell. The sound so loud it’s a physical sensation; you can feel it. And how close they raced. How close they raced to the wall and to each other. And how incredibly well they could manage their emotions. I couldn’t believe it. And, as a writer, I just loved it. And I love anything that speaks to our region of the country. Whether it’s a locally owned bookstore as opposed to a chain. And this was a sport that sprang from the South, and it sprang from the South for a reason—and it’s certainly transcended that now --- but in that time I started covering it, it was distinctly rooted in it. And it had an accent. And it had a fascinating relationship with tobacco—the whole cash crop of the South—and they were interdependent on each other’s success, R.J. Reynolds [Tobacco] and NASCAR. And I just thought, ‘What more could you want as a writer?’ This great language. This vernacular. And all these sights and smells, and this genuine drama. This authentic drama. So, I immediately loved writing about it. Over the years, as I covered it, it would frustrate me and I’d get irked with it and kind of get a saturation point, but I was like that the four years I covered the [Washington] Redskins—I think it’s good to get distance from whatever you cover from time to time. I’m still not sure that I would run out and buy a ticket and go up and sit in the stands. But I don’t do that for football. I don’t go to any sport for pleasure. To me, pleasure is a movie or a concert. But, as far as if an editor says, ‘OK, come back with a great story about this sport,’ it’s like you can do so much with NASCAR, I don’t see how you can get bored. Even though the common reaction from people who don’t know it is, ‘What could be more boring than turning left all day?’

BTS: What’s your take on NASCAR’s recent unprecedented growth, the criticisms that followed, and NASCAR’s attempt to now reach out to its longtime fans?

LC: I think a lot of the change and growth of the initiatives that NASCAR has undertaken in the last three to four years were all very aggressive moves designed to reach the casual sports fan. To convert the Sportscenter viewer to NASCAR. Whether it’s creating this postseason, or moving all the start times back to 3 or 4 p.m., so it appeals to the L.A. or West Coast market. And the big fanfare that surrounded the opening of the tracks in Miami, Dallas, L.A., Chicago. So, if I’m a shareholder—which of course you can’t be unless your name is France—if I’m a shareholder, I totally understand and applaud these moves. But I think there is evidence that they reached for too much, too fast. And, in the process, alienated a lot of the traditional fans. If, for no other reason, that it’s ingrained in their lifestyle that you go to church on Sunday, you come home, and you turn on the race at 1. And it’s very disruptive when it’s now 3:30, and there’s a half-hour pre-race, and it’s really not til 4. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I think that this rhetoric of ‘We’re returning to our roots,’ I think that’s as close as NASCAR will ever come to saying, ‘We made a mistake.’ They’re never going to say ‘We made a mistake.’ But it’s an acknowledgment. It is important that NASCAR send a signal, both subtle and overt, that it is still the sport that people fell in love with, 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

BTS: What changes have affected you the most?

LC: There’s a long list of things that I loved about the sport that are gone, that I lament. Like North Wilkesboro Speedway closing. Now, in the same breath, I can say, ‘Yes, it was a dump. It was a pain to get to. The infrastructure was not there. It seated 40,000 as opposed to 140,000,’—I’m not an idiot, I can see the economic imperative for leaving it behind. But I miss the kind of racing. The intimacy. How close you sat. How miniature the infield was. I mean, I tend to be somebody who romanticizes the past. But what I lament are the real regional quirky tracks that were not 1.5 mile, cookie-cutter. They had oddities and anomalies that were a puzzle for the engineers. I loved all the variations between the Pontiac and the Ford and the Chevy, and the lobbying that would go on every year about that. I don’t like the cookie-cutter tracks. I don’t like the cookie-cutter cars. And I don’t like the cookie-cutter personalities of the drivers. That’s the biggest point of concern. But please let me also say that I don’t believe the drivers of today have no personality. It’s not that I believe they’re blank. It’s just that I believe they are under such constraints and such pressure to say the right thing, do the right thing, behave the right way. Whether it comes with having a $20 million a year salary or … I just feel like they’re sort of in a straitjacket. And everything they do or say is not only filmed, it’s on YouTube and you can play it over and over. It’s a really broad lament, I think, about sports in general. Would I like to see more celebrating in the NFL? Yeah. But the NFL keeps a pretty clamped restraint on things, too.

There are reasons to be bullish about NASCAR’s future. And I sincerely think it’s terrific that Juan Montoya is racing. And there’s nothing but an upside as they diversify the ranks of the drivers, the look of the drivers, the background of the drivers. And so that’s all great. But yeah, the quirkiness—it’s the same emotion I have when a local movie theater is taken over by a Cineplex, or my local bookstore gives way to a chain. It’s not unique to NASCAR, but I get wistful about it.

BTS: What provoked you to write the book?

LC: I certainly didn’t see it as any great commercial opportunity. And the way I set about it was kind of unwieldy and impossible from the get-go. I think the traditional thing is write about one driver or pick a season and chronicle a season in the life of NASCAR. All those things it’s easy to get your arms around. But I really wanted to claim the entire scope [laughs], just do the best I could in saying, ‘Here’s a sliver of what it used to be like. And here’s the ways in which it’s changed. And here are some of my favorite memories. And here are some of my saddest and most-heartwrenching memories.’ And kind of let people take it from there. But yeah, there have been some changes in good ways. And in ways that I really lament and, no, you certainly can’t go back.

BTS: What are your thoughts on the early part of this season?

LC: I think they had a great Daytona 500. There were something like 43 lead changes, and really exciting last lap. Through not fault of anyone, a lot of that momentum was lost with the nightmarish second race of the season [in California], with the rainout and the kind of regrettable way of dealing with that. That was like a pin in the balloon. And that’s not anybody’s fault—or it’s so many people’s fault—plus the heavens, you can’t really control. I think it’s great that Ford has won some races, because they were almost irrelevant going into this season—you really don’t want Chevy to win every race. And you kind of don’t want Hendrick Motorsports to win every race, either. There’s at least some evidence of competitive intrigue, if not balance. So, we’ll see. I just think it’s not in NASCAR’s interest to talk about the championship two races into the season. I’m not sure they need it; I wasn’t that keen on it. But I think it would be great if it became part of the conversation with 10 races to go. But there’s no sense of talking about it now; the whole point of racing is to win races. I mean, it sounds so lame, but that is the point of races. It’s not to collect points towards something you cash in later. It’s not like frequent-flyer miles. That just, to me, strips all the drama … if what you’re prepared to do with 10 laps to go, with five laps to go, with two laps to go … and just to be talking about points and losing points and having a good points day, every bit of that is a euphemism for … for something awful. And that’s why I love the Bud Shootout and the all-star race, because that’s as close to pure racing as NASCAR is going to get; the non-points races, the duels, the qualifying races. And I’m not saying anything that’s not obvious … I don’t want to sound overall like I’m ragging on NASCAR—things can cut both ways. And I do see the goal they’re pursuing and I understand that. But, in some ways, to the extent that they can tell or indicate to drivers that, you are the reason we sell tickets. It’s your personality. Your passion. Let’s have it. I would really be in favor of points deductions for any driver who wins a race, gets out of the car, and mentions the name of a sponsor before he shows a true emotion. [Laughs]. I’m not going to say you can’t do both. But let’s have the emotion. Let us experience this with you. And then, we can listen to you mention the sponsor.

BTS: How do you think NASCAR is doing right now in terms of connecting with its longtime fans?

LC: I think in the market where NASCAR has always been strong, the fans are still very much in love with the sport, even though there are things about the sport they don’t like. Whether you monitor chat rooms or letters to the editor in NASCAR Scene or whatever. Too many commercial interruptions during the races. One start time. Don’t like anything that has the feel that NASCAR has engineered the outcome of the race. And I’m not saying ‘fixes it.’ I’m just saying [the fans] don’t like cautions they don’t really see the reason for. Any race that ends under caution … they don’t want the control tower to influence the outcome, certainly under the last 20 laps. So, it’s real easy to find the hot button for NASCAR fans, because they’re very passionate and they express themselves really well. They’re sending pretty clear signals out of what they want to see out of racing. And I feel the sport is trying to respond. I think what’s harder to get a gauge on is all the fans who showed up those first years at the L.A. track. What’s it going to take to make them come back? Was NASCAR just the flavor of the week for them a couple years ago? How do convert these people into the people who come year after year after year, like the Bristol fans?

I think they’ve gotten the message that it’s time to stabilize their mission and stabilize their fan-base. I really think two consecutive years of the TV ratings erosion has sent that message home. The empty stands. I still think [NASCAR] is in an incredibly enviable spot. I think it’s light years ahead of hockey in popularity. I think it’s ahead of MLB in a lot of ways; I really do. But I don’t think they should make the schedule any longer. And I just think it’s time to really take care of those bonds with fans, and those bonds between drivers and fans—always between drivers and fans. That’s what made the sport and that’s what will keep the sport healthy.