Bowling Green became the city of speed immediately after World War II as America began its love affair with the automobile. Stock car racing took the city by storm in its inaugural season of 1951, drawing crowds of up to 7,000 in a city of only 18,000. Soon thereafter, the city attracted the Chevrolet Corvette assembly plant followed by the National Corvette Museum. Images of Sports: Bowling Green Stock Car Racing documents the history of stock car racing in Bowling Green and the emergence of the raceway at Beech Bend Park.
Bowling Green became the city of speed immediately after World War II as America began its love affair with the automobile. Stock car racing took the city by storm in its inaugural season of 1951, drawing crowds of up to 7,000 in a city of only 18,000. Soon thereafter, the city attracted the Chevrolet Corvette assembly plant followed by the National Corvette Museum. Images of Sports: Bowling Green Stock Car Racing documents the history of stock car racing in Bowling Green and the emergence of the raceway at Beech Bend Park. Larry Upton is a bank executive in Gilbert, Arizona. He has written for the Journal of Commercial Bank Lending and the Journal of Arizona History. Jonathan Jeffrey, special collections librarian at Western Kentucky University's Kentucky Library, has written a number of books about the city's heritage. Many of the images used in this book came from the collection of Marshall Love Jr.
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.
Soon after the first automobiles were introduced in the United States, auto racing became a reality. Since that time, motorsports have expanded to include drag racing, open wheel racing, rallying, demolition derbies, stock car racing, and more. Motorsports have grown to such an extent that NASCAR is now the second most watched professional sport in America, behind only football. But motorsports are about much more than going fast and finishing first. These events also reflect our culture, our society, our values, and our history. In Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR, Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller bring together essays that examine the relevancy of motorsports to American culture and history, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Addressing a wide spectrum of motorsports—such as stock car racing, demolition derbies, land speed record pursuits, and even staged train wrecks—the essays highlight the social and cultural implications of contemporary and historical moments in these sports. Topics covered include gender roles in motorsports, hot rods and the creation of fan and participant identities, the appeal of demolition derbies, the globalization of motorsports, the role of moonshine in stock car history, the economic relationship between NASCAR and its corporate sponsors, and more. Offering the most thorough study of motorsports to date from a diverse pool of disciplines and subjects, Motorsports and American Culture will appeal to motorsports and automobile enthusiasts, as well as those interested in American history, popular culture, sports history, and gender studies.
Provides a resource for traveling to Kentucky that features recommendations for dining, lodging, transportation, shopping, recreational activities, landmarks, and cultural opportunities.
This comprehensive guide to the Bluegrass state offers hundreds of lodging, dining, and outdoor recreation recommendations, and includes coverage of Civil War battlefields, equine culture, and cultural gems. Unbridled majesty awaits you in the state of Kentucky! Celebrate native son Abraham Lincoln’s birthday; attend one of Kentucky’s signature equestrian events; or enjoy outdoor adventures like caving, hiking, and wildlife watching in this lush landscape. Tour the Bluegrass State with this comprehensive book in hand, letting lifelong resident Deborah Kremer be your guide.
Howell (cultural history, Michigan State U.) describes the features, activity, and impact of the annual 32-race, 10-month stock car competition. He focuses on the role of corporate sponsors in transforming the sport from an amateur pastime to a big-money media event. Paper edition (unseen), $21.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Phoenix's Manzanita Speedway, the last of the big dirt tracks located near the central corridor of a major metropolitan area, is now gone. The track opened in the early 1950s when Jack Holloway, president of the Arizona Jalopy Racing Association, along with Avery Doyle and Gene Gunn, set about convincing Rudy Everett and Larry Meskimen to convert their unprofitable dog-racing operation into a quarter-mile dirt track. On August 25, 1951, Everett and Meskimen beamed with excitement as Manzy opened to an overflowing crowd. They had tapped into America's post-World War II craze for automobiles and found their own Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in the process. Manzanita Speedway dominated dirt-track racing in Phoenix and was heralded as one of the top five dirt tracks in the United States. Manzy became an integral part of the racing culture in Phoenix, and its sale and closure in 2009 created a sense of lingering disappointment.
This in-depth analysis examines how and why Southern culture was forever changed when Scotch-Irish immigrants flooded the Appalachian Mountains in the 1700s. Geographical similarities between Southern Appalachia and the Highlands of Scotland and Ireland are discussed, as well as the parallels and differences of the two cultures in four basic areas—music and dance, agricultural practices, fighting and hunting techniques, and technological innovativeness. More than 300 years of the communities' ideology is explored based on data culled from ethnographic observation, interviews at various heritage sites, historic accounts, archived letters, and other textual documentation.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
