Dirt Track Auto Racing 1919 1941

Prior to World War I, auto racing featured expensive machines and teams financed by auto factories. The teams toured the country, and most of the races were held in large cities, so the vast majority of Americans never saw a race. All this changed after World War I, though, and in the 1920s and 1930s there were approximately 1,000 dirt tracks in the United States and Canada. The dirt tracks offered small-time racing--little prize money and minimal publicity--but people loved it. This pictorial history documents dirt track racing, with what are today called sprint cars, around the United States from 1919 to 1941. Information on dirt track racing in Canada during this time is also provided. Regionally divided chapters detail the drivers, tracks, and specific races of each area of the country. Some of the drivers went on to win fame and fortune while others faded into obscurity. Tracks included well known facilities as well as out-of-the-way sites few people had ever heard of. The cars ranged from state of the art machines to the more common home built specials based on Model T or Model A Ford parts. Taken together, the drivers, tracks, and races of this era were instrumental in making auto racing the popular sport it is today.

The first organized, sanctioned American stock car race took place in 1908 on a road course around Briarcliff, New York--staged by one of America's early speed mavens, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. A veteran of the early Ormond-Daytona Beach speed trials, Vanderbilt brought the Grand Prize races to Savannah, Georgia, the same year. What began as a rich man's sport eventually became the working man's sport, finding a home in the South with the infusion of moonshiners and their souped-up cars. Based in large part on statements of drivers, car owners and others garnered from archived newspaper articles, this history details the development of stock car racing into a megasport, chronicling each season through 1974. It examines the National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing's 1948 incorporation documents and how they differ from the agreements adopted at NASCAR's organization meeting two months earlier. The meeting's participants soon realized that their sport was actually owned by William H.G. "Bill" France, and its consequential growth turned his family into billionaires. The book traces the transition from dirt to asphalt to superspeedways, the painfully slow advance of safety measures and the shadowy economics of the sport.

This book covers Joan Newton Cuneo's life, and her roles (from 1905 to 1915) as the premier female racer in the United States and spokeswoman for women drivers and good roads. Beginning with her family history and marriage to Andrew Cuneo, it traces her life in New York society, the birth of her children, and Joan's growing interest in automobile touring and racing and partnership with Louis Disbrow, her racing mechanic. The book covers Joan's experiences in three Glidden Tours, including her notes on the 1907 tour, her first races, and her rivals. It also looks at the growth and change of automobile culture and the battles for control of racing among the American Automobile Association, the Automobile Club of America, and the American Automobile Manufacturers Association--which ended in banishing women racers shortly after Joan's greatest racing victories at New Orleans (in 1909). The book then follows Joan's attempts to continue racing, the end of her marriage, her move to the Upper Peninsula, and her remarriage and death. The book also includes a chapter on her female rivals in racing and touring.

Flyin' Floyd" Gilbert was a blue-collar hero from the golden age of dirt racing. Hailed as an "icon of dirt track racing" during his induction into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame, Gilbert earned some 500 feature race victories and 16 track championships during a 30-year career, all while racing door to door against other legendary drivers on rugged ovals across Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and the deep south.

One of the most evocative eras in the history of American motorsport was the golden age of dirt-track racing, when hairy-knuckled drivers duked it out in open-wheel racers on half-mile ovals around the country. This photographic history spans the classic era from 1946 to 1970, featuring vintage photography of the Champ and Sprint cars that were driven by men like A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Roger Ward and Bobby Unser for very little monetary reward. The technologies of the most successful and unusual cars are discussed as are specific races, circuits and some of the more colorful personalities of the period. Midget and track roadsters are also featured, along with period color photography.

The history of dirt track racing in southeast Tennessee and North Georgia is documented through pictures and old newspaper articles. An 148 page paperback book.